Crucibles The Story Of Chemistry

> I

From Ancient Alchemy to Nuclear Fission

CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY is
told, in all its fascination, through the lives of the
men and women who devoted themselves completely
to it:

TREVISAN most famous of the ancient alchemists*

PARACELSUS first physician to make use of chem-
istry in the cure of disease*

PRIESTLEY the clergyman who discovered oxygen.

CAVENDISH first to discover the composition of
water.

LAVOISIER father of modern chemistry.
DALTON architect of atomic theory.
VOEHLER pioneer in organic chemistry.

MENDELEEFF gave us our first Table of the
Elements.

The CURIES discovered and isolated radium,
iHOMSON discoverer of the electron.

LANGMUIR first applied the electron theory to
chemistry,

LAWRENCE inventor of the cyclotron.

EINSTEIN, FERMI, UREY, OPPENHEIMER and
others the men who harnessed atomic energy.

Premier Books are designed to bring to a larger
reading public, at small cost, reprints of outstanding
books previously published at much higher prices.

CRUCIBLES:

THE STORY

OF
CHEMISTRY

From Ancient Alchemy to Nttdear Fission

BERNARD JAFFE

/ 1 t
Att&or of OUTPOSTS OF SCIENCE

BLICATIONS, ING, Grmwtch f Com.

Copyright MCMXXX, MCMXLH, MCMXLVm, Bernard Jaffa
Copyright 1957, Bernard Jaffe

CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY was originally
published by Simon and Schuster, Inc., and is reissued at 50$ in
this newly revised PREMIER edition through arrangement with
that company,

Afl rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof.

Second PREMIER printing, January 1960

PREMIER BOOKS are published by

FAWCETT WORLD LIBRARY
67 West 44th Street, New York 36, New York

Printed in the United States of America

PREFACE

DURING the period since the first publication of this book in
1930 death has taken many of the pioneers of modern
chemistry. Marie Curie became a victim of radium-the ele-
ment of her own discovery. Frederick G. Banting returned
from the first World War with the idea that he would try to
conquer diabetes, and he did. He then lost his life in an air-
plane accident while in the service of Great Britain during the
second World War. Death also took the great Joseph J.
Thomson, discoverer of the electron, and his brilliant student,
Ernest Rutherford, discoverer of the proton. Albert Einstein
and Enrico Fermi, two of the leading architects of the new
nuclear age, are also no longer with us.

Their work is ended. But they left behind them others who
continued the search which the alchemists started centuries ago.
By 1930 scientists had already changed a few elements into dif-
ferent elements, but their transmutations were on a submicro-
scopic scale. Furthermore, they were aware by 'this time that
modern alchemy might soon release the energy inside the nu-
cleus of the atom, and supply mankind with a new source of
energy which would dwarf our resources of coal, oil, and water
power. This led me, twenty-seven years ago, to write in the
first edition, "As man pries off the covers that hide the secrets
of the atom^he may unearth wonders which may bring the
millennium when men will guide the tiny atom in doing the
world's work, while he has the leisure to do still greater things.
Man may then find a program which will make him either
robot or demigod. But in this mastery lurks also the danger
of cosmic disaster. Some scientists groping and tinkering with
this mighty force may unknowingly set ofi the most tremendous
bomb which could destroy mankind."

v

* KANSAS CITY [MO) LIBRARY

How well founded was this belief became public on August
6, 1945, when an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. To
be sure, the alchemists had not been looking for a weapon
which could destroy civilization. They were seeking a philoso-
pher's stone which could turn the cheaper metals such as iron
and lead into the more precious gold, and an elixir of life
which would retard old age. To the social-minded scientist the
conquest of nuclear energy means a modern philosopher's
stone which, if used wisely, could improve the health and well-
being of tens of millions of people all over the world.

To bring the dramatic story of the conquest of the atom up
to date the last four chapters of the 1948 edition of this book
have been thoroughly revised. During recent years the world
center of scientific research has gradually shifted to our own
country. Anderson, Lawrence, Rabi, Urey, and Seaborg are
but a few of our research workers who are bringing new
laurels to American science. These had been joined during
World War II by brilliant laboratory men from Nazi Germany
and Fascist Italy. They found refuge here and intellectual free-
dom, and an atmosphere where the pursuit of science for better
living can be carried on*

It is hoped that this new and abridged edition of Crucibles
will provide the layman with an up-to-date picture of the
development of our present knowledge of chemical science,
especially of the conquest of nuclear energy, and its implica-
tions; and also that it will stimulate teachers to lay greater
stress on the drama of a dynamic chemistry.

BERNARD JAFFE
New York City
January, 1957

vi

CONTENTS

I Bernard Trevisan (1406-1490) ...... 9

II Tlieoplirastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) .... 20

HI Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) ...... 32

IV Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) 48

V Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) . . s 62

Vl-John Dalton (1766-1844) 77

VH John Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) .... 93

Vm-Friedrich Voehler (1800-1882) 108

LX Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendeleeff (1834-1907) . 125

X Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) 140

XI Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) ... 155

XH Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940) .... 172

HE Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley (1887-1915) . 188

XIV Irving Langmuir (1881- ) 205

XV Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901- ) ... 217

XVI Men Who Harnessed Nuclear Energy . . . 221

I

TREVISAN
HE LOOKS FOR GOLD IN A DUNGHILL

IN THE DARK interior of an old laboratory cluttered with
furnaces, crucibles, alembics, stills and bellows, bends an old
man in the act of hardening two thousand hens' eggs in huge
pots of boiling water. Carefully he removes the shells and
gathers them into a great heap. These he heats in a gentle flame
until they are white as snow, while his co-laborer separates the
whites from the yolks and putrifies them all in the manure of
white horses. For eight long years the strange products are
distilled and redistilled for the extraction of a mysterious white
liquid and a red oil.

With these potent universal solvents the two alchemists hope
to fashion the "philosopher's stone." At last the day of final
testing comes. Again the breath-taking suspense, again
failur el their stone will not turn a single one of the base
metals into the elusive gold.

Secretly had the old man worked at first, for had not the
Arabian master of alchemy, Geber himself, admonished his
disciples- 'Tor heaven's sake do not let the facility of making
gold lead you to divulge this proceeding or to show it to any
of those around you, to your wife, or your cherished child, and
still less to any other person. If you do not heed this advice
you will repent when repentance is too late. If you divulge this
work, the world will be corrupted, for gold would then be
made as easily as glass is made for the bazaars."

The quest of the Golden Grail obsessed him. As far back as
he could remember, Bernard Trevisan had thought and
dreamed of nothing else. Born in 1406 of a distinguished
family of Padua, oldest of the northern Italian cities, he had
been reared on his grandfather's stories of the great search of
the alchemists. Stories of failures, all, but he would succeed
where the others hact failed. Encouraged by his parents, Ber-
nard began his great adventure at the age of fourteen. His
family approved, for they hoped to multiply the young heir's
patrimony a thousandfold. But as the years of failure passed
and his fortune slowly dwindled they lost faith as others -had
done. They pitied him and attributed his pursuit of alchemy
to nothing short of madness.

9

10 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

But no failures or discouragement could dampen the hopes
of the alchemist. Undeterred by the fiasco of the eggshell ex-
periment, carried on with the aid of Gotfridus Leurier, a monk
of Citeaux, he continued his labors with superhuman patience.
"I shall find the seed," he whispered to himself, "which will
grow into great harvests of gold. For does not a metal grow
like a plant?" "Lead and other metals would be gold if they
had time. For 'twere absurd to think that nature in the earth
bred gold perfect in the instant; something went before. There
must be remoter matter. Nature doth first beget the imperfect,
then proceeds she to the perfect. Besides, who doth not see in
daily practice art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps out
of the carcasses and dung of creatures? And these are living
creatures, far more perfect and excellent than metals."

For ten more long years, Bernard Trevisan followed the
will-o'-the-wisp teachings of Rhazes and Geber. He dissolved
and crystallized all kinds of minerals and natural salts. Once,
twice, a dozen times, even hundreds of times, he dissolved,
coagulated and calcined alum, copperas, and every conceivable
animal and vegetable matter. Herbs, flowers, dung, flesh, ex-
crementall were treated with the same painstaking care. In
alembics and pelicans, by decoction, reverberation, ascension,
descension, fusion, ignition, elementation, rectification, evapo-
ration, conjunction, elevation, sublimation, and endless other
strange operations, he tried everything his tireless ingenuity
could conjure.

"Gold is the most perfect of all metals," he murmured. "In
gold God has completed His work with the stones and rocks
of the earth. And since man is natures's noblest creature, out of
man must come the secret of gold." Therefore he worked with
the blood and the urine of man. These operations consumed
twelve years and six thousand crowns. He was surrounded by a
motley group of pretended seekers after the stone by men
who, knowing the Italian rich, offered him secrets which they
neither understood nor possessed. His wealth dwindled slowly
as he supported all manner of adepts, for he had not yet
learned that where one honest adept of alchemy is found, ten
thousand cheats abound.

Finally he became tired of the knaves who had reduced him
almost to penury. He rid himself of these impostors and turned
his attention to the obscure and mystic works of two other mas-
ters of alchemy, Johannes de Rupecissa and Sacrobosco. His
faith in the philosopher's stone revived, this time he allied
himself with a monk of the Order of St. Francis. This friar

TREVISAN 11

had told him how Pope John XXII, during the "Babylonian
Captivity/' maintained a famous laboratory at Avignon where
he himself labored to make gold, and as he piled up a fortune
of eighteen million florins, issued bulls against the competition
of other alchemists.

Thrice ten times Bernard Trevisan rectified spirits of wine
"till," as he said, "I could not find glasses strong enough to
hold it." This liquor would not fail him, he thought. Again the
test was made the "stone" proved as unfruitful as ever. But
the fire still burned hot within him. He buried himself in his
dark dungeon of a laboratory, sweating and starving for fifteen
more years in the search for the unattainable.

By now he had spent ten thousand crowns, and his health
was very poor. But the fervor of the aging man was unabated.
Almost maddened by failure, he betook himself to prayer,
hoping that God in His goodness would select him as the
deliverer of man from poverty. But the favor of the Lord was
not visited upon him, and his friend, the Franciscan, died in
the quest. Bernard Trevisan was alone once more.

He transported his laboratory to the shores of the Baltic
Sea where he joined forces with a magistrate of the city of
Treves, who also belonged to that band of erring men im-
pelled by an almost insane force to the strange search. "I am
convinced," said this magistrate, "that the secret of the phi-
losopher's stone lies in the salt of the sea. Let us rectify it day
and night until it is as dear as crystal. This is the dark secret
of the stone." So for more than a year they labored, but the
opus ma^us still remained concealed.

Now Bernard, still fumbling in the dark, came upon another
clue. Turning to silver and mercury he dissolved them in
aqua fortis, a very strong acid. By concentrating the solutions
over hot ashes obtained from foreign coals, he reduced their
volumes to half. Then carefully he combined the two liquids,
making sure not to lose a single drop, and poured the mixture
into a clay crucible, which he placed in the open, exposed
to the action of the sun's rays. "For does not the sun acting
upon and within the earth form the metals?" he argued. "Is
not gold merely its beams condensed to a yellow solid? Do not
metals grow like vegetables? Have not diamonds been known
to grow again in the same place where years before they had
been mined?" He, too, had heard of mines being closed to give
the metals an opportunity to grow larger. For another five
years he worked with this sun-exposed mixture, filling phial
after phial and waiting for the great change which never came.

12 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Bernard Trevisan was now close to fifty years old, but the
fire still burned within him with a full flame. Gathering his
meager possessions, he set out in search of the true alchemists.
His wanderings carried him to Germany, Spain, and France,
where he sought out the famous gold searchers and conferred
with them in the hope of finding the key that would put an
end to his all-consuming desire.

He finally settled down in France, still working in his lab-
oratory, when word reached him that Master Henry, Confessor
to Emperor Frederick III, had finally discovered the secret
formula of the stone. He started off to Vienna at once and
found a man after his own heart. Master Henry had been
working all his life to solve the supreme riddle of transmuta-
tion. He was no deceiver, but a man of God, sincerely searching
for the germ of gold. The two dreamers vowed eternal friend-
ship, and that night Bernard, "the good," gave a banquet in
honor of his new partner, to which he invited all the alchemists
of the vicinity. At the banquet table it was agreed that forty-two
gold marks should be collected from the guests. Master Henry,
contributing five marks, promised to multiply the coins fivefold
in the crucible. Bernard added twenty marks, while his five last
surviving comrades, who had kept him company on his travels,
added their little share, borrowed from their patron.

In a glass vial of strange design Henry mixed yellow sul-
fur with a few drops of mercury. Holding the vial high over
a fire, slowly he added a few grains of silver and some pure oil
of olives. Before finally sealing the glass container with hot
ashes and clay, he placed in it the forty-two gold marks and a
minute quantity of molten lead. This strange mixture was
placed in a crucible and buried in a red-hot fire. And while the
alchemists ate and drank heartily, and chattered volubly of
the great search of the centuries, the concoction in the vial
boiled and bubbled unguarded in the kitchen furnace.

Patiently they waited until the vial was broken. The "ex-
periment" was a failure. Master Henry could not understand.
"Perhaps," he ventured, "some ingredient had been wanting."
Others suggested that the phase of the moon and the position
of the planets and stars were not propitious for such a momen-
tous experiment. Yet was it not strange that when the crucible
was emptied in the presence of the queer company that sur-
rounded Bernard, only sixteen of the forty-two gold marks were
salvaged? The other twenty-six had disappeared, perhaps to
appease Hermes Trismegistus, the father of alchemy. This farce
infuriated Trevisan, and he vowed to abandon the quest.

TREVISAN 13

For two weary months which seemed to go on and on forever,
Bernard kept his pledge, but again that burning in his heart
overcame cold reason, and his mind was set once more on re-
trieving his vanishing fortune through the stone. And now his
thoughts turned to the cradle of alchemy to Egypt, Palestine,
Persia, Greece, Turkey, the Isle of Cyprus. For was not the
father of alchemy identified with the grandson of Noah, who
was intimately familiar with the philosopher's stone? Had not
Sarah, the wife of Abraham, hidden an emerald tablet engraved
with the cryptic directions for making gold? Had not Alexander
the Great discovered it in a cave near Hebron? "Whatever is
below is like that which is above, and that which is above is
like that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of one
thing." This he had read, and stranger things, too. "The father
thereof is the sun, and the mother thereof is the moon, the
wind carries it in its belly, and the nurse thereof is the earth.
This thing has more fortitude than fortitude itself, because it
will overcome every subtle thing and penetrate every solid
thing. By it this world was formed." Here was the meaningful
secret of the universal solvent which Hermes, the son of
Osiris, King of Egypt, had discovered. Had not Jason and the
Argonauts gone in search of the Golden Fleece, which was
nothing else than a book of alchemy made of sheepskin? And
had not Gaius Diocletian, Roman Emperor in 290 A.D., ordered
all books which treated of the admirable art o making gold
committed to the flames, "apprehensive lest the opulence of
the Egyptians should inspire them with confidence against the
Empire"? Perhaps, thought Bernard, some of these books had
escaped destruction. There, in the Greek colony of Alexandria,
he would rummage through the scrolls of the ancients.

For four more years he made his pilgrimage. "In this affair,"
he wrote, "I spent upwards of eleven thousand crowns, and in
fact, I was reduced to such poverty that I had but little money
left, and yet I was more than sixty-two years of age." Soon he
met another monk, who showed him a recipe for whitening
pearls. The pearls were etched in the urine of an uncorrupted
youth, coated with alum, and left to dry on what remained of
the corrosive. Then they were heated in a mixture of mercury
and fresh bitch's milk. Bernard watched the process, and be-
holdthe whitest pearls he had ever seenl He was now ready
to listen to this skilled adept. Upon security of the last remnant
of his once-great estate, he persuaded a merchant to lend him
eight thousand florins.

For three years he worked with this friar, treating a rare iron

14 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

ore with vinegar in the hope of extracting the mystic fluid. He
lived day and night in his dirty laboratory, losing his fortune
to multiply it. So obsessed was he by this search that he had
no time even to wash his hands or his beard. Finally, unable
to eat or drink, he became so haggard and thin that he thought
he had been poisoned by some of the deadly fumes in which
he had been working. Failure again sapped his health, and the
last of his estate was gone.

So alone, friendless, penniless, weary in mind and physi-
cally broken, Bernard Trevisan started for his home in Padua,
only to find that his family would have nothing to do with
him. Still he would not give up the search. Retiring to the Isle
of Rhodes, he continued his work with yet another monk who
professed to have a clue to the secret. The philosopher's stone
remained as elusive as everl Bernard had spent threescore years
grappling with nature; he had lost thousands of crowns; he
no longer had the strength even to stand before the furnace.
Yet he continued the search.

Once more he returned to the study of the old philosophers.
Perhaps he had missed some process in the writings of the
ancient alchemists! For ten long years he read and reread
every manuscript he could find, until one day he fell asleep and
dreamed of a king and a magic fountain. He watched the
heavenly bodies robe and disrobe. He could not understand,
and in his dream he asked a priest, "What is all this?" and
the priest answered: "God made one and ten, one hundred and
one thousand, and two hundred thousand, and then multiplied
the whole by ten." "But still I do not understand!" cried Ber-
nard. "I will tell you no more/' replied the priest, "for I am
tired." Then Bernard awoke suddenly. He felt faint and knew
the end was near.

I did not think to die

Till I had finished what I had to do

I thought to pierce the eternal secret through

With this my mortal eye.

Grant me another^ year,

God of my spirit, but a day, to win

Something to satisfy this thirst within.'

I would know some thing here.

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken.

Speak for me but one word that is unspoken.

But the prayer of the dying alchemist was not answered.

THE VIS AN 15

The fire beneath the crucible was out:
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on the alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.

And thus, in 1490, died Bernard Trevisan.

As we peer down the vista of the past we find the delusion of
transmutation holding the most prominent place in the minds
of thinking men. Frenzied alchemy held the world in its grip
for seventeen centuries and more of recorded history. This
pseudo-science with its alluring goal and fascinating mysticism
dominated the thoughts and actions of thousands. In the
records of intellectual aberrations it holds a unique position.
Even Roger Bacon of Oxford, easily the most learned man of
his age, the monk who seven hundred years ago foresaw such
modern scientific inventions as the steamship and the flying
machine, believed in the possibility of solving this all-consuming
problem.

Isaac Newton, one of the clearest scientific thinkers of
all time, bought and consulted books on alchemy as late as the
eighteenth century. In his room in Trinity College, Cambridge,
he built a little laboratory where he tried various experiments
on transmutation. After leaving the University, he was still con-
cerned with this problem, and wrote to Francis Aston, a friend
who was planning a trip through Europe to "observe the prod-
ucts of nature in several places, especially in mines, and if you
meet with any transmutation those will be worth your noting.
As for particulars these that follow are all that I can now
think of. In Schemnitrium, Hungary, they change iron into
copper by dissolving the iron in vitriolate water." He was in-
tensely interested in a secret recipe with which a company in
London was ready to multiply gold. Robert Boyle, President
of the Royal Society, was also so impressed that he helped to
procure the repeal of the Act of Parliament against multipliers
of gold.

The power and influence of many of the alchemists can
hardly be exaggerated. In nearly every court of Europe were
men appointed by kings and emperors to transmute base metals,
like lead and iron, into gold, and so advance the financial status
of their kingdoms. Records exist which tell of the lending of
alchemists by one court to another, and of treaties between

16 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

states where monarchs traded in alchemists. Many were raised
to the nobility; many worked shoulder to shoulder with their
sovereigns. A number of little houses used as laboratories, situ-
ated near the beautiful castle of Emperor Rudolph II in
Prague, bear testimony to that monarch's intense interest in
this strange science. He neglected the affairs of state to dabble
in science and in Vienna are still displayed leaden bars which
Rudolph tried to convert into gold.

Two years before Bernard Trevisan was born, England, by
act of Parliament, forbade the making of gold and silver by
alchemical processes. Later, however, King Henry IV granted
the right to make gold to certain persons, and at the same time
appointed a committee of ten learned men to invesigate the
possibilities of transmutation. Henry VI went further. He en-
couraged both the nobility and the clergy to study the science
of alchemy, in the hope that they might help him pay the debts
of the State. Two soldiers, Edmund de Trafford and Thomas
Asheton organized a company which was granted the privilege
in 1445 to make the yellow metal and actually produced a
product from which coins were minted. When the Scots heard
of this English gold, their Parliament refused to allow it to
enter their country. Upon analysis, they found it to be an alloy
of mercury, copper and gold.

While among the alchemists there were some genuine en-
thusiasts like Bernard Trevisan, the annals of this queer prac-
tice are filled with accounts of charlatans and spurious adepts
who, with a deluge of glib words but with only a drop of truth,
turned alchemy into one of the greatest popular frauds in his-
tory. The writings of these avaricious devils and honest fools
are a meaningless jargon of cryptic terms and strange symbols.
Their public demonstrations of transmutation were often
clever enough to fool the most cautious. Many came to witness
the making of gold from lead and iron, convinced that it could
be done. For had they not seen iron vessels, plunged into cer-
tain natural springs containing copper salts r emerge covered
with the red metal? It was a matter of common knowledge
that a dark dirty ore could be heated until all its impurities
were destroyed and a bright shiny metal was obtained. Traces
of silver and gold had been found in many ores. Then why
could not the further heating of these ores yield larger quan-
tities of the precious metals? In fact, with sufficient treatment,
it ought to be possible to change the ore entirely into lustrous
gold. Simple enough questions in the light of their ignorance
of chemical facts. Besides, nature was performing marvelous

TREVISAN 17

transmutations every minute of the day as food was changed
into blood, and sugar into alcohol And there were mystics who
saw in the change of bread and wine into the body and blood
of Christ at the consecration of the elements in the Eucharist
a hope that, by the help of God, a similar transmutation could
be affected of the baser metals into gold.

In many of the museums of Europe we can still see shiny
yellow metals reputed to be gold-products of the deceptions
and trickery of the gold cooks of European courts. The Hessian
thalers of 1717 were struck from alchemical gold and silver.
Some of these samples came from the false bottom of a crucible
whose true bottom had been publicly filled with a mysterious
mixture which furnace heat was to turn into gold. Other nug-
gets of gold were gathered from the inside of hollow nails
which had been used by impostors to produce gold by
"transmutation."

The penalty for failure to produce the philosopher's stone
was heavy. For Bernard Trevisan, it meant the loss of an im-
mense fortune, the discouragement of seventy and more years
of futile, tireless labor, until death finally came. For many
others it was premature death. History records the exposure
and punishment of more than one impostor. Marco Bragadino,
the gold maker, was hanged by the Elector of Bavaria. William
de Krohnemann met the same fate at the hands of the Mar-
grave of Beyreuth. David Benthei cheated the Elector Augustus
of Saxony by killing himself. And in 1575 Marie Ziglerin, a
female alchemist, was burnt at the stake by Duke Julius of
Brunswick. Frederick of Wurtzburg maintained a special gal-
lows, ironically painted in gold, used solely for those unfor-
tunate alchemists who could not fulfill their promise to make
real gold. On the gibbet, an inscription had been posted by
the hangman for the entertainment of its victim: "I once knew
how to fix mercury and now I am fixed myself."

During the sumer of 1867 three clever rogues met in Paris:
Romualdo Roccatani, a Roman archpriest, Don Jos Maroto
Conde de Fresno y Landres, a Spanish grandee, and Colonel
Don Antonio Jimenez de la Rosa, a Neapolitan chevalier. The
possessors of these sonorous names had a secret process for
turning silver into gold. They were shrewd enough to real-
ize that Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria was, by dynastic
tradition at least, keenly interested in alchemy.

Arriving in Vienna they cleverly obtained an audience with
the monarch and offered him the most momentous discovery of
all time. In Mariposa, California, they told His Majesty, were

lg CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

natural deposits of white nuggets which contained gold formed
from silver by the action of mercury and the heat of the sun.
They continued: "This same process of transmutation may
be brought about much more quickly by artificial methods,
through giving the amalgam a specific gravity of 15.47. There-
by a process of nature is imitated when the silver amalgam
is exposed to a greatly increased temperature."

Francis Joseph made an initial payment of $10,000 for the
secret, and assigned Professor Schrotter, discoverer of red phos-
phorus, to supervise a small-scale experiment in the laboratory
of the Polytechnic On October 17, 1867 two iron pots and
two glass retorts were filled with silver amalgam and heated
for four months. The vessels then cracked. No gold was found.
Then, opportunely, the adventurers disappeared, thus cheating
the gibbet of three distinguished victims.

About sixty years ago, in enlightened America, an alchemical
enterprise was started by a Dr. Stephen H. Emmens. This Eng-
lish poet, novelist, logician, chemist, and metallurgist claimed
to have discovered "argentaurum," a modern philosopher's
stone which could augment the amount of gold in an alloy of
gold and silver. Many fanciful stories about this undertaking
appeared in the press, even though Emmens tried earnestly to
surround his experiments with strictest secrecy. Much of what
appeared in print was deceptive, but this we know the syndi-
cate formed by the English adventurer sold to the United States
Assay Office six ingots of an alloy weighing ten pounds which
upon analysis showed the presence of gold and silver. The gov-
ernment paid him the sum of $954 for the metals, and Emmens
straightway advanced this payment as proof of his astonishing
success. For a moment the affair seemed to promise a recru-
descence of alchemy. The first dividends were paid, and
Emmens even promised a public demonstration at the World's
Fair in 1900, which, however, never materialized. The whole
scheme was a fraud and before long the name of Emmens was
added to that long list of men and women who have gone down
in the limbo of the past among the spectacular failures of
history.

Alchemy, nourished in superstition and chicanery, still has its
adepts and believers. In France, there exists an Alchemical
Society for the study of alchemic processes of transmutation.
August Strindberg, one of Sweden's great modern literary fig-
ures, was a firm believer in transmutation. "People ask me if I
can make gold," he wrote, "and I reply, 'to draw the genealogi-
cal chart of the ancestors of a cat, I do not have to know how

TREVISAN 19

to make a cat.' " He knew, he believed, the secrets of the great
riddle, but he never professed to make gold.

What was the significance and value of this strange search
for the philosopher's stone? Was it just a meaningless, childish
reaching for the moon? Was alchemy really chemistry as Liebig,
one of the world's greatest chemists, believed? Was this long
tragedy and farce of alchemy all in vain?

Surely it was not in vain. Francis Bacon compared alchemy
"to the man who told his sons he had left them gold buried
somewhere in his vineyard; where they by digging found no
gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines,
procured a plentiful vintage." In this fanatical search a great
mass of valuable discoveries was made, and many chemical
facts were learned. Nitric, hydrochloric and sulfuric acids, the
three most important acids employed by the modern chemist,
and aqua regia, the powerful solvent for gold formed by mixing
the first two of these acids were introduced by these early
gold searchers. In their quest for the seed of gold in the dirt
and dross of centuries, new elements like antimony, arsenic,
bismuth and phosphorus were unearthed. Many of the common
chemicals of today owe then* discovery to those early days-
alum, borax, cream of tartar, ether, fulminating gold, plaster of
Paris, red lead, iron and silver salts and heavy barium sulfide,
the first substance known to glow in the dark after exposure
to sunlight, stumbled upon by Cascariolo, a cobbler of Bologna.

Some of the apparatus and utensils which are the tools of
the chemist of our scientific laboratories were first introduced
by alchemists cupel, distilling flask, retort, water bath and
even the balance in its crude form. The extraction of gold by
amalgamation with mercury, the preparation of caustic alkali
from the ashes of plants, and other new processes of manipu-
lation and methods of manufacture were developed by the gold
cooks in their manifold operations.

This heritage is indeed a rich one, for in their blind groping
for a new process to make gold these adepts of alchemy paved
the way for the more fruitful science of chemistry. Synthetic
gold, however, never came. And as Bernard Trevisan lay dying
on the Isle of Rhodes almost five hundred years ago, he uttered
with his last breath his conviction: "To make gold, one must
start with gold."

n

PARACELSUS

A CHEMICAL LUTHER FEEDS A BONFIRE

BERNARD TREVISAN was dead. Almost fifty years passed and
in front of the University of Basel its students had lit
a huge bonfire to celebrate the feast of St. John. Suddenly and
unexpectedly appeared Philippus Aurelius Theophrastus Bom-
bast von Hohenheim, lecturer in medicine and chemistry.
Under his arm was a copy of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine.
He turned to his students and ordered brought to him all the
books of the old masters of alchemy and medicine which
clutched the thoughts of men in a paralyzing grip. "You shall
follow me," he shouted, "you Avicenna, Galen, Rhazes, you
gentlemen of Paris, Cologne, Vienna, and whomsoever the Rhine
and Danube nourish; you likewise 'Athenians, Arabs, Greeks
and Jews, all shall follow me. The latchets of my shoes are
better instructed than you all. All the universities, and all the
old writers put together are less gifted than the hairs of my
beard and the crown of my head."

Then into the flames of the roaring fire he threw the books
of the masters, and as the fire consumed these evil scrolls he
cried out to his students, "All misery shall be carried away
in this smoke."

The world of authority stood aghast. A bonfire had just been
kindled by Luther to swallow up the bull of Pope Leo X. And
here was another fellow who burned the sacred works of these
masters and trampled underfoot every precept they had taught.
With the zeal of a religious fanatic and the courage of a cru-
sader, he ran amuck among the treasured beliefs of his day
and shattered them in bits. Had they not expected something
of the sort from that crazy Paracelsus? Had he not scoffed at
their veneration of the Latin tongue, and lectured his students
and the crowd of barbers, bajthmen and alchemists whom he
invited contrary to all precedent, in a racy German? The dons
had been horrified. They had warned him about this breach,
but he would not be intimidated. What was to be done with
such a heretic? He was strongly intrenched at Basel through
the influence of Johan Frobemus, the distinguished book pub-
lisher of that city to whom he had ministered in sickness, and
whose right leg he had actually saved from amputation. Desi-

20

PARACELSUS 21

derius Erasmus, the great scholar of Rotterdam, was living with
Frobenius at the time, and he, too, received medical attention
from the Swiss iconoclast who cured him of the gout and kidney
trouble. "I cannot offer thee a fee equal to thy art and learn-
ing/' he wrote to Paracelsus. "Thou hast recalled from the
shades Frobenius which is my other half; if thou restorest me
also, thou restorest each through the other. May fortune favor
that thou remain in Basel."

It was hard to dislodge a man with the spirit of Paracelsus.
Three hundred years later Robert Browning revealed in a
poem the soul of this same fanatic. Paracelsus speaks to his
friend:

Festus, from childhood I have been possessed
By a fire by a true fire, or faint or fierce,
As from without some master, so it seemed,
Repressed or urged its current; this but ill
Expresses what I would convey.

The authorities were afraid of this man who believed himself
chosen by God. They waited for a chance to get rid of him.
Besides, Paracelsus had made other enemies. The local doctors
hated him. He had denounced them publicly as- a "misbegotten
crew of approved asses" for their practices of bleeding, bath-
ing and torturing the sick. "The doctors who have got them-
selves made doctors with money go about the town as if it
were a crime for the sick to contradict them," he had told the
people. And he sneeringly added, "These calves think them-
selves great masters, for did they not go through the examina-
tion at Nuremberg?"

The apothecaries, too, were enraged against this iconoclast.
For had he not, as official town physician, demanded the right
to inspect their stocks and rule over their prescriptions which
he denounced as "foul broths"? These apothecaries had grown
fat on the barbarous prescriptions of the local doctors. "The
physician's duty is to heal the sick, not to enrich the apothe-
caries," he had warned them, and refused to send his patients
to them to have prescriptions compounded. He made his own
medicines instead, and gave them free to his patients.

All joined in an effort to rid themselves of this firebrand.
He was peremptorily ordered to appear before the medical
faculty of the University to show cause why he should be per-
mitted to continue to practice medicine in the city of BaseL
Frobenius, his patient, had died suddenly and they blamed

22 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

him for his early death. But Paracelsus knew that death was
caused by a stroke due to a strenuous horseback ride to Frank-
fort which Frobenius had undertaken against his advice. Para-
celsus refused to present himself.

Then they hatched a plot and before long Basel lost Paracel-
sus, ostensibly because of the meanness of a wealthy citizen.
Paracelsus had sued Canon Lichtenfels for failure to pay him
one hundred guldens promised for a cure. The patient had
offered only six guldens and the fiery Paracelsus, when the
court deliberately handed in a verdict against him, rebuked it
in such terms that his life was in imminent danger. In the dead
of night, he was persuaded by his friends to leave secretly the
city where he had hurled defiance at the pseudo-medicos of the
world.

Europe at the time was in the throes of a great intellectual
upheaval. Over in Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg introduced
printing from movable type. In Eisleben in the heart of Ger-
many, Martin Luther was born to question the orthodox reli-
gion of the day and usher in the Protestant Reformation.
Columbus, seeking a westward passage to the Indies, discov-
ered a new world. The Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Coper-
nicus, for lack of a telescope, cut slits in the walls of his room
in the University of Padua, watched through them the passage
of the stars, and then revised man's idea of his place in the
universe. Fifteen centuries of Ptolemaic teaching that the earth
was the center of the universe, were overthrown. And in
Madrid, Andreas Vesalius, another graduate of the University
of Padua, raised a storm as he introduced human dissection
into the study of anatomy, thereby risking death at the hands
of the Spanish Inquisition.

In spite of this renaissance, medicine was still a pseudo-
science based on the teachings of Hippocrates of Cos, Avicenna
the Persian Prince of Physicians and Galen of Pergamos, gilder
of pills and dissector of swine and apes. Superstition, mysti-
cism and false theories were the cornerstones of its structure.
Yet so intrenched were these authorities that, even when Para-
celsus was still a student at Basel, a certain Dr. Geynes was
refused a fellowship at the newly incorporated College of
Physicians in England until he had publicly recanted of his
error in having doubted the infallibility of Galen the Greek.

Most alchemists and physicians, having failed in their quest
for the philosopher's stone, were now passionately hunting for
the universal medicine, a panacea for all the ills of man.
"There is nothing which might deliver the body from mortal

PARACELSUS 23

death," they admitted, "but there is one thing which might
postpone decay, renew youth, and prolong human lifethe
elixir vitae" What greater incentive to research could be
offered than that strange fluid potent enough to ward off the
dreaded encroachments of old age?

Many claimed to have discovered the Grand Catholicon. It
is recorded that one man anointed his entire body with it,
and lived four hundred years. But failing to anoint his soles
he was forced to ride and never walk lest his feet, subject to
decay, might bring him premature death. The elixir held forth
an alluring promise of perpetual youth and happiness. Need
we wonder that the eternal search went on in every corner of
the world? Juan Ponce de Leon, landing at Porto Rico soon
after the discovery of America, followed the hopeful tales of
the Indians and sought the Fountain of Youth only to discover
Florida.

This was the world into which Paracelsus was born three
years after the death of Trevisan. His father was William
Bombast von Hohenheim, a celebrated physician of the little
village of Einsiedeln in the Swiss canton of Schwyz. For a
while it seemed the child could not survive the weakness of its
body. Small, frail and rickety, only the constant care of his
mother, in charge of the village hospital, carried him through
the dangerous period of infancy.

After attending school in a small lead-mining region where
his father was now physician and teacher of alchemy, he was
sent for higher instruction to the University of Basel where he
adopted the name Paracelsus after Celsius, a famous Roman
physician. Here he came across the writings of Abbott Hans
Trithemius, celebrated astrologer, alchemist and inventor of a
scheme of shorthand. Influenced by his writings Paracelsus
went to Wurtzburg to study under him many books besides
the Bible.

Then for a year he worked in the silver mines of Schwatz
in the Tyrol. In 1516, at twenty-three, Paracelsus started to
"transport himself into a new garden." For nearly ten years
he roamed over Europe, matriculating and studying in every
famous university. In Paris he met Ambroise Pare", who was
learning to tie human arteries, an art which was to bring him
fame as the father of modern surgery. This surgeon of King
Charles IX was later spared during the slaughter of the Hugue-
nots on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day. He, like Paracelsus,
was the first surgeon to write in his native tongue, nor did he
forget to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Swiss reformer.

24 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

At Montpellier Paracelsus studied the Moorish system of
medicine. He also hovered around Bologna and Padua. Spain
and Portugal were included in this itinerary, before he trav-
elled to England. Then the restless spirit of Theophrastus Para-
celsus brought him to the Netherlands where war had broken
out. He was offered and accepted the post of barber-surgeon
in the Dutch Army Later he served in the same capacity in
the Neapolitan Wars during which he came in possession of
his famous long sword. He took advantage of his position to
attend the Diet of Worms; where he heard his kindred spirit,
Luther, make his memorable defense of his doctrines. In Swe-
den he investigated the causes of mine disasters and studied
diseases of miners. The treatment of diseases of horses, goats
and cattle occupied much of his time in Russia.

Paracelsus, the crusader, did not stop with Europe. Like
Bernard Trevisan, he went to the East and visited Constanti-
nople, the seat of a world-famous medical practice. Trevisan
had come here in search of the secret of gold, but Paracelsus
came to seek the secret of long life. He travelled to Egypt and
Tartary, and accompanied the son of the Grand Khan in search
of the tincture of life possessed by a Greek alchemist.

These years of adventure were years of fruitful experiences.
In his passionate search for truth, Paracelsus did not hesitate
to mingle with gypsies, conjurers, charlatans, sorcerers, rob-
bers, bandits, convicts, refugees from the law all manner of
rogues and honest men. From them he gathered much curious
lore about medicine and alchemy. "My travels," he wrote,
"have developed me; no man becomes a master at home, nor
finds his teacher behind the stove. Sicknesses wander here and
there the whole length of the world. If a man wishes to under-
stand them, he must wander too, A doctor must be an alche-
mist, he must see mother earth where the minerals grow. And as
the mountains will not come to him, he must go to the moun-
tains. It is indeed true that those who do not roam have greater
possessions than those who do; those who sit behind the stove
eat partridge, and those who follow after knowledge eat milk-
broth. He who will serve the belly he will not follow after
me."

During these years of travel he studied and practiced medi-
cine and surgery. Students flocked to him in Wurtemberg,
Tubingen, and Freiburg. The world began to hear of his won-
derful cures. In the meantime Paracelsus was filled with a
realization of the wisdom and folly of the medicine of his day.
The shams of that pseudo-science kindled in him the fire of a

PARACELSUS 25

reformer, and when at length he came to Basel as medical
lecturer, he was ready for his great battle against the false
ideas of healinga battle which he waged until death found
him, before he was fifty, at Salzburg in Austria.

Paracelsus strove to tear away the shackles that enslaved
the human mind to the ancient dogmas of the infallible Avi-
cenna and the categorical Galen. But the authorities at Basel
were too powerful. He was forced to leave that city, but not
before he had struck a blow at the established leaders of
alchemy and medicine from which they never recovered. When
he fled from Basel he had already begun his work of destroying
age-old tenets. He was still young only thirty-five. Before
leaving his students he made clear to them his plans for the
future "the restoration of true medicine."

Paracelsus, the iatrochemist, found refuge among his friends
in Colmar in the province of Alsace whither he called the
printer Oporinus, who brought him his chemical apparatus and
notes. He set up a laboratory in a cellar and continued to work,
but his enemies pursued him. They had styled him the chemical
Luther, and, "Why not?" he asked. "Luther is abundantly
learned, therefore you hate him and me, but we are at least a
match for you."

Paracelsus was bitter. When at Basel they had pinned to the
cathedral door a scurrilous attack from the shades of Galen
to "Cacophrastus," he had challenged them in no uncertain
terms: "Show me what kind of men you are and what strength
you have. You are nothing but teachers and masters combing
lice and scratching. You are not worthy that a dog shall lift
his hind leg against you. Your Prince Galen is in Hell, and if
you knew what he wrote me from there you would make the
sign of the cross and prepare yourselves to join him. Your dis-
solute Avicenna, once Prime Minister, is now at the gates of
Purgatory. I am preparing 'soluble gold* as a medicine for his
suffering." They hated his caustic,, vulgar tongue, and with
reason.

For thirteen tormenting years Paracelsus led a vagabond life.
Driven by poverty and reverses, he devoted his time to writing,
healing and preaching with the energy and passion of one pos-
sessed. Like Bernard Trevisan, this Galahad, too, was absorbed
in a great search. He was going to crush to the ground every
trace of a vicious practice. He was determined to vindicate his
teachings before the whole hostile world. The medical reformer
met bitter opposition. Innsbruck refused him the privileges of
the city. The professors were jealous and the authorities were

26 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

afraid. He pleased no one but the sick whom he succeeded in
healing. Tired, hungry, and in rags, he dragged his sickly body
from town to town. He could gain no public hearing, no pub-
lisher would print his books; his enemies had seen to that. So
for hours at a stretch he would write ceaselessly, and then, too
tired to undress, throw himself upon his pauper's bed for a
few hours' rest. This outcast was putting down in writing a
new message which was to bring the world nearer to a clearer,
saner understanding of the art of healing.

Paracelsus shouted the need for experimentation. "I admon-
ish you not to reject the method of experiment, but, according
as your power permits, to follow it out without prejudice. For
every experiment is like a weapon which must be used accord-
ing to its peculiar power, as a spear to thrust, a club to strike,
so also is it with experiments."

"Obscure diseases," he wrote, "cannot at once be recog-
nized as colors are. What the eyes can see can be judged
quickly, but what is hidden from the eyes it is vain to grasp
as if it were visible. Thus it is with the obscure and tedious
diseases that so hasty judgments cannot be made, though the
Galenic physicians do this." And again he attacked the stand-
patters. "Do you think that because you have Avicenna of
Bukhara, Valescus and de Vigo that you know everything?
That which Pliny Secundus and the rest of them have written
of herbs they have not tested, they have learned from noble per-
sons and then with smooth chatter have made books about
it. Test it and it is true. You cannot put to proof your authors'
writings. You who boast yourself Doctors are but beginners!"

Those of his followers who believed he always carried the
elixir of life with him in the pommel of his famous long sword,
attributed his premature death to an overdose of his life-giving
fluid or arcanum. His enemies, on the other hand, alleged that
his career ended at the hands of an assassin while he was in
one of his frequent drunken stupors. It is impossible to credit
the first and unfair to believe the second of these stories. Today
we cannot doubt that his end came peacefully. When the time
drew near for death to take him, Paracelsus cried:

Let me weep

My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone,
In tears which burn. Would I were sure to win
Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture
Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed
Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change

PARACELSUS 27

To opal shafts only that, hurling it
Indignant back, I might convince myself
My aims remained supreme and pure as ever.

And through the long night, as Browning pictured it, Festus,
his friend, comforted this childless man with the assurance that
he had not struggled in vain.

When death retires before
Your presence when the noblest of mankind
Broken in body or subdued in soul,
May through your skill renew their vigor, raise
The shattered frame to pristine stateliness.
When men in racking pain may purchase dreams
Of what delight them most, swooning at once
Into a sea of bliss, or rapt along
As in a flying sphere of turbulent light.
When we may look to you as one ordained
To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees
Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul.

Paracelsus took courage. He looked into the future.

But after, they will know me. If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.
You understand me? I have said enough.

Three days before he died, on his forty-eighth birthday,
Paracelsus dicated his last will and testament. "There shall be
sung in the church," he requested, "the first, seventh, and thir-
tieth psalms, and at all three singings a penny is to be given in
hand to every poor man before the door."

Today, engraved on a broken pyramid of white marble in
the cemetery of the Hospital of St. Sebastian in Salzburg, may
be read: "Here is buried Philippus Theophrastus, distinguished
Doctor of Medicine, who with wonderful art cured dire wounds,
leprosy, gout, dropsy, and other contagious diseases of the body/*
No mention is made of the elixir of life.

Like Bernard Trevisan, egotistic yet earnest Paracelsus
went to his grave beaten in his quest. Years before, he had real-
ized the difficulty of his fight. The old theory of diseases ac-

28 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

cepted in those days was based upon the conception of
Hippocrates of four body fluids or humorsphlegm, blood,
yellow bile, and black bile, which in some mystic way were
associated with the old Aristotelian elemental qualities cold,
warm, dry, and moist. Disease was caused by the improper pro-
portions of these four fluids in the body, which also controlled
the character of man. An excess of phlegm made one phleg-
matic, too much blood made one sanguine, while an abundance
of yellow bile produced a choleric person.

Another one of the common beliefs of his day was the doc-
trine of signatures which dictated the use of certain plants in
medicine because their names resembled the part of the body
afflicted or the disease itself. The feverwort, for instance, was
used to reduce fever, and the liverwort to cure diseases of
the liver.

The peculiar practice of sympathetic remedies was preva-
lent too. A wound was cleaned and then bandaged while the
weapon which caused the wound was covered with the remedy.
An axe had badly cut a butcher's hand. The bloody hand was
washed and bandaged and the axe, covered with the healing
salve, was hung on a nail and carefully guarded until the hand
was healed. Once, when the butcher suffered very annoying
pains, it was found that the axe had fallen from the nail. It
was thought that as long as the weapon was watched a magic
current through the air would perform the miraculous healing.

For pains in the joints doctors prescribed an oil obtained
from the bones of victims of some violent death, and for chick-
enpox they served their patients a soup filled with the heart
and liver of vipers. Against the physicians who professed these
ideas Paracelsus had fought all his life. "I shall not in my
time/' he had written, "be able to overthrow this structure of
fables, for they are old and obstinate dogs who will learn noth-
ing new and are ashamed to recognize their folly. That, how-
ever, does not matter much, but it does matter that, as I hope,
the young men will be of a different character when the old
ones have passed away, and will forsake their superstitions."
That day did not come until long after Paracelsus exchanged
life for death. The old order survived for decades, and the
new order was ushered in only after the old dogmas were
safely buried with the dead follies of the past.

The world owes bombastic Paracelsus a great debt. This
revolutionist with the imagination of a poet and the fearless-
ness of a crusader, was much more than the bibulous braggart
his enemies had called him. He was a real benefactor of man-

PARACELSUS 29

kind His great contribution was no one epoch-making discov-
ery, but rather the vital impetus he gave to the study of
chemistry for the curing of ills of the body. He swept aside the
teachings of the ancient authorities and brought alchemy to
the aid of medicine.

"I praise," he told Europe, "the chemical physicians, for
they do not go about gorgeous in satins, silks, and velvets,
silver daggers hanging at their sides, and white gloves on their
hands, but they tend their work at the fire patiently day and
night. They do not go promenading, but seek their recreation
in the laboratory. They thrust their fingers among the coals
into dirt and rubbish and not into golden rings." Here was
the true creed of the laboratory. Here alone would mankind
find balm for its ills and salvation for its pains.

No longer were the rich to depend upon the playing of the
flute to ward off or heal the gout as Galen had taught. Nor was
man to rely any more upon the blowing of the trumpet to heal
sciatica, as yEsculapius himself had prescribed. Man was no
longer to remain captive to the notion that an ape's leg tied
around the neck would cure the bite of this beast, nor was
medical knowledge to be gained by the scanning of the heavens.
And what pernicious nonsense was this singular practice among
the old men of Rome of being breathed upon by young girls
to prolong their lives I

Paracelsus abandoned all this witchcraft and superstition.
He started the search for the potent drugs which the alchemist
was to prepare or purify. Even the many herbs and extracts in
common medical use were placed secondary to the value of
these chemicals. There were many who gave ear to his instruc-
tions They went back to their laboratories, threw away the
crucibles filled with the strange concoctions that would not
change to gold, and sought medicines to relieve human suffer-
ing. Paracelsus himself showed the way. He experimented in
his laboratory, and introduced into medicine salves made from
the salts of mercury. He was the first to use tincture of opium,
named by him laudanum, in the treatment of disease. The pres-
ent pharmacopoeia includes much that Paracelsus employed
lead compounds, iron and zinc salts, arsenic preparations
for skin diseases, milk of sulfur, blue vitriol, and other
chemicals.

He understood the scepticism of the people about alchemy.
Had they not been cheated and duped by those charlatans who
claimed to possess the philosopher* stone? "Its name/* he
pleaded, "will no doubt prevent its being acceptable to many;

30 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

but why should wise people hate without cause that which some
others wantonly misuse? Why hate blue because some clumsy
painter uses it? Which would Caesar order to be crucified, the
thief or the thing he had stolen? No science can be deservedly
held in contempt by one who knows nothing about it. Because
you are ignorant of alchemy you are ignorant of the mysteries
of nature." The changes which take place in the body are
chemical, he said, and the ills of the body must be treated by
chemicals. Life is essentially a chemical process and the body
a chemical laboratory in which the principles of mercury, salt,
and sulfur mingle and react to bring illness or health Para-
celsus believed that if the physician were not skilled to the
highest degree in this alchemy, all his art was in vain. Here was
a radical departure from the old practices. It brought to a
hopeful close the age of frenzied alchemy, with its search for
gold from dung.

Yet the lure of gold was still powerful. In Germany, Chris-
tian Rosenkreutz had founded the Brotherhood of the Rosy
Cross, which professed to have the secret of making the yellow
metal from dew. The Rosicrucians, as they were called, mixed
their alchemy with a queer form of religion. Even Paracelsus,
while searching for potent drugs to cure the ills of mankind,
secretly sought the philosopher's stone, which might yield the
cherished gold. Never did he really deny transmutation, and
while he shouted from every public forum he was permitted to
ascend that "the true use of chemistry is not to make gold but
to prepare medicines," we find him privately attempting to
prepare alchemic gold.

In his C oleum Philosophorum Paracelsus wrote that by the
mediation of fire any metal could be generated from mercury.,
He considered mercury an imperfect metal; it was wanting in
coagulation, which was the end of all metals. Up to the half-
way point of their generation all metals were liquid mercury,
he believed, and gold was simply mercury which had lost its
mercurial nature by coagulation. Hence if he could but coagu-
late mercury sufficiently, he could make gold And while Tie
tried hundreds of different methods to bring this about, in the
end he admitted failure. "From the seed of an onion, an onion
springs up, not a rose, a nut, or a lettuce," he declared. The
end of his life's journey had brought him to the same secret
that Bernard Trevisan had found.

Robert Boyle, one of the founders of modern chemistry,
likened such alchemists as Paracelsus to the Argonauts of Solo-
mon's Tarshish who brought home from their lone and peril-

PARACELSUS 31

ous voyage not only gold, silver, and ivory, but apes and
peacocks, "for so the writings present us, together with diverse
substantial and noble experiments, theories which either like
peacock's feathers make a great show, but are neither solid nor
useful, or else like apes, if they have some appearance of being
rational, are blemished with some absurdity or other that,
when they are attentively considered, makes them appear
ridiculous."

And as his writings, so was Paracelsus strange mixture of
honest, fitful, fearless crusader, and mystic, cowardly seeker
after gold.

in

PRIESTLEY

A MINISTER FINDS THE PABULUM OF LIFE

PARACELSUS lies buried in his grave for more than two cen-
Jr turies. Great political upheavals have shaken the founda-
tion of Europe and institutions hatfe gone tumbling to the
ground. The French have stormed their Bastille in Paris
while eager, greedy, curious men pottered around in smoky
laboratories ever seeking to unravel some of the secrets of

nature.

. ,

The anniversary of the storming of the Bastille is approach-
toff. Over in Birmingham, England, liberal men are planning
to celebrate this historic day. Modestly, quietly, without drum-
beat or torchlight, they gather in the meetinghouse of the town.
g these lovers of human freedom is a dissenting minister, ,
Joseph Priestley, who, too, has joined this group to com-
ate the emancipation of a neighboring nation from

cranny.

l .;,It & July 14, 1791. Outside the meeting place two men oa
llorseback are stationed in front of a wild mob. One of them
iiskeadin&a long document, prepared by an agent of the King:
s ~ e Presbyterians intend to rise. They are planning to burn
a the Church. They will blow up the Parliament. They are
" " - a great insurrection like that in France. The King's
l be cut off, and dangled before you. Damn it! you
wul destroy us! We must ourselves crush them before
late /' The cry of Church and King goes up and a
cl men break loose. And as the magistrates of the city
and applaud, Priestley's JMeetipghouse is burned to

w over England hai Miamed the people against
^^ters. Priestley was also an enemy of the government
jgJiKfe had been a thorn in its side for years. Openly siding
il'&p American colonists in their struggle for independence,
$j$ bKizenly broadcast letters like the following which
Fianklin had sent him. "Britain, at the expense of
wrote the candlemaker's son from Philadel-
one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign,
rt^iLj thousand pounds a head;' and at Bunker's Effll
ba ptile of ground, half of whkh she lost again by ^r,

PRIESTLEY 33

taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thou-
sand children have been born in America. From these data your
mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense
necessary to kill us all, and conquer the whole of our territory."

He was fearless in espousing any cause which seemed just
to him. He had just been made a citizen of the French Repub-
lic for publishing a caustic reply to Burke's attack on the
French Revolution. To this dangerous agitator's home the
crowd rushed, demolished his library, smashed to bits all his
scientific apparatus, and burned his manuscripts. Priestley was
not the only victim. The residence of Dr. Withering was also
attacked and the homes of others of Priestley's friends were
pillaged and burned, while some of the Dissenters, to escape
the terror, scrawled "No Philosophers" on their doorsteps.
Still the fury of the mob was not abated. "Let's shake some
powder out of Priestley's wig," yelled one rioter, and away
they went to hunt him out. But the stuttering minister had
been warned, and he fled to London, while for three days the
riot continued, encouraged by some members of the court of
King George III, who thought to intimidate the friends of
liberty by this means.

After his flight to London, Priestley found himself much
restricted with respect to philosophical acquaintances. In
Birmingham since 1780 he had been the center of a stimulating
intellectual circle. He had infused new vigor into this small
group of men who called themselves the Lunar Society because
they were accustomed to dine once a month near the time
of the full moon, "so as to have the benefit of the light on re-
turning home" as Priestley explained, Erasmus Darwin, grand-
father of Charles Darwin, was its patriarch. As this portly
gentleman with his scratch-wigged head buried in his massive
shoulders stammered out his lively anecdotes, the room fairly
rocked with laughter. On one occasion, finding himself unable
to attend a meeting he wrote: "Lord, what inventions, what
wit, what rhetoric, metaphysical, mechanical and pyrotechnical
will be on the wing while I, I by myself I, am joggled along
the King's highway to make war upon a stomach ache."

James Watt, celebrated Scotch engineer and perfector of the
first practical steam engine, sat there with his business partner,
Boulton, while Samuel Galton, wealthy man of letters, ex-
changed views on science, literature and politics with Dr.
Withering, physician and chemist. Captain James Kerr, com-
mercial chemist and author; Collins, an American rebel, and
Dr. Henry Moyes, a blind lecturer in chemistry, completed this

34 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

brilliant gathering among which Joseph Priestley "seemed
present with God by recollection and with man by cheerful-
ness."

Priestley missed this social and intellectual life deeply, for
most of the members of the Royal Society shunned him either
for religious or for political reasons. When London's natural
philosophers met once a week at Jacob's Coffee House with
Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Charles Blagden, Captain Cook and Dr.
George Fordyce, Priestley was not a welcome visitor. Finally
he resigned from that scientific body. More than a century later
during the first World War, on similar grounds, the scientists
of Germany struck the names of England's most eminent chem-
ists from their list of foreign honorary members. Such is the
madness of men, even among scientists, in times of stress.

And while over in France, the Department of Orne was elect-
ing this son of a poor dresser of woolen cloth a member of its
National Convention, he brought action for damages to the
extent of four thousand pounds against the city of Birming-
ham. King George wrote to Secretary Dundee: "I cannot but
feel pleased that Priestley is the sufferer for the doctrines he
and his party have instilled, yet I cannot approve of their hav-
ing employed such atrocious means of showing their contempt."
The case went to a jury and after nine hours Priestley tri-
umphed. The great wrong done was in part righted, and Priest-
ley was enabled again to give himself to the world of science.

Born in 1733 at Fieldhead, near Leeds, of staunch Calvinists,
Priestley was prepared for the ministry. At the age of twenty-
two, after having been rejected because of his views on original
sin and eternal damnation, he was appointed pastor of a small
chapel in Suffolk, earning thirty pounds a year. Much as he
was averse to teaching, he was compelled by his meager salary
to do so. This master of French, Italian, German, Arabic,
Syriac, and even Chaldee, between seven in the morning and
four in the afternoon taught school; between four and seven,
he gave private lessons; and then, whatever time he could
snatch from his clerical duties he devoted to the writing of an
English grammar. A few years later Priestley, while teaching
languages in an academy established by Dissenters at War-
rington, attended a few lectures in elementary chemistry,
studied anatomy for a while, and attempted a course of lectures
In this subject.

Then at the age of thirty-four, Priestley went to take charge
of the Mill Hill Chapel at Leeds. Poor, struggling to support
a family on the scantiest of means, unpopular because of his

PRIESTLEY 35

religious views, and, like Demosthenes, battling a serious defect
in his speech, this many-sided Englishman found time between
his theological duties and metaphysical dreamings for more
worldly matters. During one of his occasional trips to London
he met Benjamin Franklin, who stirred in him an interest in
electricity. Priestley planned to write a history of this subject
with books and pamphlets which Franklin undertook to supply,
This was the beginning of his career as a scientist. "I was led
in the course of my writing this history," he tells us, "to
endeavor to ascertain several facts wnich were disputed, and
this led me by degrees into a larger field of original experi-
ments in which I spared no expense that I could possibly
furnish."

Some part of the fame -which is Priestley's was due to the
public brewery which adjoined his home here in Leeds. In this
smelly factory he busied himself in his spare moments, experi-
menting with the gas which bubbles off in the huge vats during
the process of beer-making. He lighted chips of wood and
brought them near these bubbles of colorless gas as they burst
over the fermenting beer. It was a queer business for a minister,
and the factory hands shook their heads as they watched him
bending over the bubbling cisterns that hot midsummer. Priest-
ley was too absorbed to pay any attention to their stifled
laughs. He knew little chemistry, but he was a careful observer.
He noticed that this colorless gas had the power of extinguish-
ing his burning chips of wood. He suspected that it might be
the same "fixed air" which fifteen years before Joseph Black,
son of a Scotch wine merchant, had obtained by heating lime-
stone while on the trail of a secret remedy of calcined snails
by means of which a Mrs. Joanna Stephens had cured the gout
of Robert Walpole, England's Prime Minister. Could this be
true? Unable to obtain sufficiently large quantities of this gas
from the brewery, he learned to prepare it at home. He tried
dissolving the gas in water. It was not very soluble, but some
of it did mix with the water. In this manner in the space of
two or three minutes he made, as he related, "a glass of ex-
ceedingly pleasant sparkling water which could hardly be dis-
tinguished from Seltzer water." Appearing before the Royal
Society he told that learned body of his discovery of what we
now know as soda water a very weak acid solution of carbon
dioxide gas in water. The Royal Society was intensely inter-
ested, and he was asked to repeat his experiments before the
members of the College of Physicians. He jumped at the oppor-
tunity, and as he bubbled the gas through water, he asked some

36 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

of those present to taste the solution. They were very much
impressed, and recommended it to the Lords of the Admiralty
as a possible cure for sea scurvy. Priestley received the Society's
gold medal for this discovery, the first triumph of this amateur
chemist in science.

Priestley, the dilettante scientist, was happy. He busied
himself with other chemical experiments. What a relief to get
away from his ministerial duties and lose himself in this great
hobby! He tried heating common salt with vitriolic acid, and
obtained a product which others had missed, for Priestley col-
lected the resulting gas over liquid mercury rather than over
water, as his predecessors had done. The colorless gas which
he obtained had a pungent, irritating odor. He tried to dissolve
it in water. Hundreds of volumes of this gas were easily dis-
solvedthe water sucked it up greedily. No wonder the gas
had not been collected before! It had dissolved in the water
over which they had tried to imprison it. This gas dissolved
in water is the hydrochloric acid used extensively to-day as
muriatic acid (Priestley's name) for cleaning metals and in
the manufacture of glue and gelatine. Here was another great
contribution to chemistry by this mere amateur.

The Rev. Joseph Priestley's congregation was puzzled at his
abiding interest in bottles and flasks. He seemed to be serving
two altars. There was some grumbling, but the English minister
was too excited to listen. He was now heating ammonia water
and collecting another colorless gas over mercury. This gas,
too, had a characteristic irritating odor. The fumes filled his
room as he bent over the logs of the open fireplace, stirring the
embers into greater activity. He was giving science its first
accurate knowledge of the preparation and properties of pure
ammonia the gas which has been so successfully employed in
refrigeration and as a fertiliser. What if the vapors did make
his eyes tear until he was almost blinded, and drove the
occupants of his humble house into the open to catch their
-breaths? This thrilled him more than any passage in the
Scriptures. Then Priestley brought these two dry, colorless,
disagreeable gases, hydrogen chloride and ammonia, together.
He was amazed at the result The gases suddenly disappeared
and in their place was formed a beautiful white cloud which
gradually settled out as a fine white powder. A great chemical
change had taken place a deep-seated change. Two pungent
gases had united to form an odorless white powderammonium
chloride, now used as an electrolyte in the dry battery.

Thus in the space of a few years Priestley, eager devotee of

PRIESTLEY 37

science made a number of significant discoveries. He began
to spend more and more time in his makeshift laboratory.
Chemistry had completely captivated him. And as he spread
the word of God among his worshipers in Leeds, the world of
science, too, began to hear of this preacher-chemist. Soon a
proposal came to him to accompany Captain James Cook on
his second voyage to the South Seas. He was tempted but, for-
tunately, another clergyman objected to HTTI because of his
religious principles. He stayed behind, and continued the great
experiment that was to bring him lasting fame.

Priestley's experiments with the different kinds of gases or
airs, as he called them, had made him very proficient in the
preparation and collection of these elastic fluids. Until his time,
the various gases had been studied by collecting them first in
balloonlike bladders. This was a clumsy method, and besides,
the bladders were not transparent. Priestley introduced and
developed the simple modern method of collecting gases. He
filled a glass bottle with liquid mercury, and inverted it over
a larger vessel of mercury, so that the mouth of the bottle was
below the quicksilver in the vessel. A tube was connected, by
means of a cork, to the gas generator, and the end of this
delivery tube was placed under the mouth of the bottle of
mercury. The escaping gas displaced the mercury in the bottle,
and was thus imprisoned in a strong transparent container*
For those gases which are insoluble in water, Priestley used
water, lighter and much less expensive than mercury, in the
glass bottle and trough, even as Hales and Mayow had done
before him. Here was a decided advance in the methods of
studying gases.

Priestley had heated a large number of solid substances in
the flames of his furnace. Now he tried utilizing the heat of
the sun by means of a sunglass. By concentrating the sun's rays
through a burning lens, he found that he could obtain a
sufficient heat to burn wood and other solid materials. Finally
he procured a very large lens, a foot in diameter, and pro-
ceeded with great alacrity to heat a great variety of sub-
stances both natural and artificial. He placed the solid sub-
stances in a belljar arranged so that any gas which might be
formed inside of it would pass out and be collected in a bottle
placed over a trough of mercury. The burning lens was so
placed outside the belljar that the heat of the sun was concen-
trated upon the solid to be tested. With this apparatus, he en-
deavored, on Sunday, the first of August, 1774, "to extract air
from mercurus calcmatus per $e" a red powder known to

38 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Geber and made by heating mercury in the air. "I presently
found," he reported, "that air was expelled from it readily."

But there was nothing startling about this. Others before him
had obtained gases by heating solids. Scheele, the great Swedish
apothecary chemist, had obtained the same results three
years before by collecting "empyreal" air. Robert Boyle, a
hundred years back, had heated the same red powder and ob-
tained the same mercury. Stephen Hales, too, had liberated a
gas from saltpetre but saw no connection between it and air.
Eck of Salzbach, an alchemist, had likewise performed this
experiment three centuries before in Germany, and yet the
world had not been aroused, for nothing further had been
discovered about the gas.

A lighted candle was burning in Priestley's laboratory near
him. He wondered what effect the gas might have on the flame
of this candle. Merely as a chance experiment, he placed the
candle in a bottle of the gas. The flame was not extinguished.
On the contrary, it burned larger and with greater splendor.
He was thrilled with excitement but was utterly at a loss to
account for this phenomenon. He inserted a piece of glowing
charcoal in another bottle of this gas, and saw it sparkle and
crackle exactly like paper dipped in a solution of nitre. The
burning charcoal was quickly consumed. He was astounded.
He inserted a red hot iron wire. The heated metal glowed
and blazed like a spirit possessed. The preacher's agitation
knew no bounds.

This chance insertion of the lighted candle ushered in a
revolution in chemistry. Speaking about this memorable occa-
sion some years later, Priestley said, "I cannot at this distance
of time recollect what it was that I had in view in making this
experiment; but I had no expectation of the real issue of it.
If I had not happened to have a lighted candle before me, I
should probably never have made the trial, and the whole train
of my future experiments relating to this kind of air might
have been prevented. . . . More is owing to what we call
chance than to any proper design or preconceived theory."

At this time Priestley had no notion of the real nature of
this air. He was steeped in the fire principle of John Becher,
a German scientist who in 1669 explained burning as due to
some inflammable principle possessed by all substances that
could burn. This he called phlogiston from the Greek "to set
on fire." When a substance burned, explained Becher, its phlo-
giston was given off in the form of a flame. Becher believed

PRIESTLEY 39

the gas to be, not the simple substance we know today as
oxygen, but some strange compound of phlogiston, earth, and
nitric acid so completely had phlogiston befuddled him. But
he kept studying this mysteriously active gas which had been
driven out of his red powder. Fumbling along as best he could,
hampered by meager funds, a poor foundation in chemistry,
and no clear goal before him, he continued to investigate
the properties of this gas. Once before, he had accidentally
prepared it from saltpetre, but had neglected to carry out any
further experiments with it. The perfect scientist would have
probed into the character of this gas as soon as he had pre-
pared it, but Priestley was not the perfect experimenter.

At that time, the atmosphere we breath was thought to be a
pure, simple, elementary substance like gold or mercury. Priest-
ley himself had first conjectured that volcanoes had given birth
to this atmosphere by supplying the earth with a permanent
air, first inflammable, later deprived of its inflammability by
agitation in water, and finally purified by the growth of vege-
tation. He had concluded that the vegetable world was nature's
supreme restorative, for when plants were placed in sealed
bottles in which animals had breathed or candles had been
burned, he had noticed that the air within them was again fit
for respiration. The phlogiston, he thought, which had been
added to the atmosphere by burning bodies, was taken up by
plants, thus helping to keep the atmosphere pure. But just
about this time Daniel Rutherford, a medical man who oc-
cupied the chair of botany at the University of Edinburgh,
had found two substances in the air. He had absorbed a small
amount of carbon dioxide from the air, by means of lime water,
which turned milky white. Then, by allowing a small animal
to breath in a limited supply of air, he found that after the
carbon dioxide had been absorbed, about four-fifths of the
volume was left in the form of an inert gas. This inactive gas
of the air was named by Chaptal nitrogen, because of its
presence in nitre.

Priestley had read of these experiments. He began to suspect
something. He heated some lead very strongly in the air and
watched it gradually turn red. This red powder he treated in
exactly the same way that he had heated the red powder of
mercury. Priestley danced with glee, for he had obtained the
same oxygenl He was confirmed in his suspicions that this
oxygen which he had obtained both from the red powder of
mercury and the red lead, must have originally come from

40 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

the atmosphere. "Perhaps it is this air which accounts for the
vital powers of the atmosphere," thought Priestley. "I shall
find out how wholesome is this dephlogisticated air."

On the eighth of March, 1775, we find this honest, religious
heretic working on a queer experiment in the large castle of
Lord Shelburne in Bowood near Calne. The night before he
had set traps for mice in small wire cages from which the
animals could be easily removed alive But what is this moulder
of the souls of men to do with mice? They are going to un-
ravel a mystery for him. He takes two identical glass vessels,
fills one with oxygen and the other with ordinary common air,
and sets them aside over water.

The next morning he removes one of his captive mice from
the trap, takes it by the back of the neck and quickly passes
it up into the vessel of common air inverted over water. He
sets the mouse on a raised platform within the vessel, out of
reach of the water. The little beast must not drown. Then
under the second vessel, filled with oxygen, he places an
equally vivacious mouse with the same care.

Seated on a chair, Priestley amuses himself by playing the
flute as he watches his curious experiments. He has no idea
how long he will have to wait. Suddenly he stops playing. The
mouse entrapped in the glass vessel containing common air
begins to show signs of uneasiness and fatigue Priestley throws
away his flute and looks at his clock. Within fifteen minutes
the mouse is unconscious. Priestley seizes its tail, and quickly
yet carefully pulls it out of its prison. Too late the mouse
is dead. He peers into the second vessel containing his oxygen.
What is happening to its tiny inmate? Nothing alarming. It
keeps moving about quite actively. Ten minutes more pass.
Priestley is still watching the animal. It begins to show unmis-
takable signs of fatigue. Its movements become sluggish a
stupor comes over it. The minister rushes to set it free, and
takes it out of its tomb apparently dead. It is exceedingly
chilled, but its heart is still beating. Priestley is happy. He
rushes to the fire, holds the little mouse to the heat, and
watches it slowly revive. In a few minutes it is as active as ever.
He is unable to believe his senses. For thirty minutes this
animal has remained in his oxygen and survived, while the
first mouse, confined in common air, had died in half that
time!

What can account for this? Is it possible that his oxygen
is purer than common air, or does common air contain some
constituent which is deadly to life? Perhaps it is all an accident.

PRIESTLEY 41

That night Priestley keeps pondering over the mice and his
oxygen. He begins to suspect that his oxygen is at least as
good as common air, but he does "not certainly conclude that
it was any better, because though one mouse might live only
a quarter of an hour in a given quantity of air, I knew," he told
himself, "it was not impossible but that another mouse might
have lived in it half an hour." And the next morning finds
Priestley experimenting with more mice to probe this mystery
of the air.

He looks for the glass vessel in which a mouse had survived
fully thirty minutes the day before. He is in luck. The vessel
still contains oxygen. He is going to use this air over again,
even though it has been rendered impure by the breathing of
the mouse. He thinks of putting two or three mice in this ves-
sel but abandons the idea. He has read of an instance of a
mouse tearing another almost to pieces, in spite of the presence
of plenty of provisions for both. So he takes a single mouse and
passes it up on to its floating platform. He watches it intently
for thirty minutes while it remains perfectly at ease. But slowly
it passes into a slumber, and, "not having taken care to set
the vessel in a warm place, the mouse died of cold. However,
as it had lived three times as long as it could probably have
lived in the same quantity of common air, I did not think it
necessary," wrote Priestley, "to make any more experiments
with mice."

Priestley was now convinced of the wholesomeness of his
oxygen. The mice had proved this to him beyond doubt. He
might have ended his experiments at this point, but he had the
curiosity of the true natural philosopher. He decided to sub-
stitute himself for his humble mice, and partake of this gaseous
pabulum of life. Breathing strange gases was a dangerous busi-
ness but Dr. Mayow, a hundred years before him, had found
that a certain gas (nitro-aerial spirit obtained by him from
nitre) when breathed into the lungs gave the red color to
arterial blood. Priestley wondered if his oxygen would be just
as effective. He inhaled some freshly prepared oxygen through
a glass tube, and found to his astonishment that the feeling in
his lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air,
"but I fancied," he noted, "that my breath felt peculiarly light
and easy for some time afterward. Who can tell but that in
time this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury.
Hitherto only my mice and myself have had the privilege of
breathing it." Priestley foresaw many practical applications of
this very active gas "it may be peculiarly salutary to the

42 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

lungs in certain morbid cases when" (as he explained it in his
terms of phlogiston) "the common air would not be sufficient
to carry off the phlogistic putrid effluvium fast enough." Today
pure oxygen is, in fact, administered in cases of pneumonia
where the lungs have been reduced in size and the patient can-
not breathe sufficient oxygen from the air. Firemen fighting
suffocating fumes, rescue parties entering mines, aviators and
mountain climbers, who reach altitudes where the air is very
rare, carry tanks of pure oxygen.

Priestley, the tyro, more than a century and a half ago had
dreamed of these modern practical uses of oxygen. Priestley,
the minister, also saw a possible danger of using this gas con-
stantly instead of common air, "For as a candle burns out much
faster in this air than in common air, so we might live out too
fast. A moralist at least may say that the air which nature has
provided for us is as good as we deserve."

Priestley kept testing the purity of his newly discovered gas.
He found it to be "even between five and six times as good as
the best common air" that he had ever handled. His imagina-
tive mind was often very practical, and again he thought of
a possible application of this oxygen. He saw in it a means of
augmenting the force of fire to a prodigious degree by blowing
it with his pure oxygen instead of common air. He tried this in
the presence of his friend Magellan by filling a bladder with
oxygen and puffing it through a small glass tube upon a piece
of lighted wood. The feeble flame burst at once into a vigorous
fire. Here was the germ of the modern blowpipe which uses
yearly billions of cubic feet of oxygen for cutting and weld-
ing. He even suggested that it would be easy to supply a pair
of bellows with it from a large reservoir, but left to Robert
Hare, of Philadelphia, the actual invention of the oxy-hydrogen
torch.

The results of his experiments set Priestley all aquiver. A
few weeks later Lord Shelburne, who had shared his views
regarding the American Colonists, took a trip to the Continent.
This scholarly statesman had offered Priestley an annuity of
two hundred and fifty pounds, a summer residence at Calne,
and a winter home in London, to live with him as his librarian
and literary companion. For eight years this beautiful rela-
tionship lasted, and it was during these years that Priestley
performed his most productive experiments. On this trip to the
Continent, Priestley accompanied his patron. While in Paris,
Priestley was introduced by Magellan, a descendant of the cir-
cumnavigator of the globe, to most of the famous chemists of

PRIESTLEY 43

France. In Lavoisier's laboratory, in the presence of a number
of natural philosophers, he mentioned some of the startling
results of his experiments. Lavoisier himself honored him with
his notice, and -while dining with him Priestley made no secret
of anything he had observed during his years of experimenta-
tion, "having no idea at that time to what these remarkable
facts would lead." Lavoisier listened to every word of this
Englishman, and when Priestley left to visit Mr. Cadet, from
whom he was to secure a very pure sample of the red mercury
powder, Lavoisier went back to his laboratory, lit the fire of his
furnace, and repeated the experiments of the minister.

Now Priestley was back in England, little dreaming to what
his meeting with Lavoisier was to lead. To Priestley the atmos-
phere was no longer a simple elementary substance. The riddle
of the air was already on tie threshold of solution when Priest-
ley was born. The Chinese, many centuries before, had written
of "yin," the active component of the air which combined with
sulfur and some metals. Leonardo da Vinci, that versatile
genius of Italy, had been convinced back in the fifteenth cen-
tury of two substances in the air. Others, too, had caught faint
glimpses of the true nature of the atmosphere. Yet it was Priest-
ley who, by the magic of chemistry, called up invisible oxygen
from the air and first solved, by his discovery of this most
abundant element of the earth, the profound engima of the
atmosphere. This puzzle, so simple today that few cannot
answer it, so important that its mystery impeded the progress
of chemistry for centuries, was finally solved by this man who
typifies the intellectual energy of his century. To this heretic
of the church, chemistry was but a hobby, a plaything that
filled the spare moments of his varied life. Out of this almost
juvenile pursuit came the unravelling of one of the world's
great mysteries. Priestley's discovery of oxygen marked a turn-
ing point in the history of chemistry.

On August 1, 1874, there was celebrated in Birmingham,
England, the centennial of this great discovery. A statue of
Priestley was to be unveiled. Three thousand miles away, in
America, a cablegram was dispatched by a group of American
chemists gathered in a little graveyard in Northumberland,
Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Susquehanna River. Dr.
Joseph Priestley, a great-grandson of the English scientist, was
present to witness the ceremonies in honor of his illustrious
ancestor. For Priestley had been buried in America.

He had come to the New World when conditions in England
became unbearable for him. The press had attacked him, and

44 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Edmund Burke had assailed him on the floor of the House of
Commons for championing the cause of the French revolution-
ists. Finally, when his scientific friends began to snub him,
Priestley, though past sixty, decided to come to America. His
landing in New York was like the arrival of a conquering hero.
His fame as theologian, scientist, and liberal had spread to the
Colonies. Governor George Clinton and Dr. Samuel Mitchill,
of Columbia University, a former pupil of the celebrated Dr.
Black, of Edinburgh, were among the distinguished citizens
who met him at the pier. The Tammany Society of New York,
"a numerous body of freemen who associate to cultivate among
them the love of liberty," sent a committee to express their
pleasure and congratulations on his safe arrival in this coun-
try. "Our venerable ancestors/' they told him, "escaped as
you have done from the persecution of intolerance, bigotry,
and despotism. You have fled from the rude arm of violence,
from the flames of bigotry, from the rod of lawless power,
and you shall find refuge in the bosom of freedom, of peace,
and of Americans."

When Priestley left for America on the 7th of April, 1794,
there were many Englishmen who realized their country's loss.
The Rev. Robert Garnham expressed this misfortune in verse:

The savage, slavish Britain now no more
, Deserves this patriot's steps to print her shore.
Despots, and leagues, and armies overthrown,
France would exult to claim her for her own.
Yet nol America, whose soul aspires
To warm her sons with Europe's brightest fires,
Whose virtue, science, scorns a second prize,
Asks and obtains our Priestley from the skies.

America did more than greet this slender, active man with
flattering phrases. The Unitarian Church offered him its min-
istry. The University of Pennsylvania was ready to make him
professor of chemistry. Other offers of speaking tours and the
like came to him. He accepted none. Benjamin Franklin had
made great efforts to have him settle in Philadelphia, but
Priestley preferred the serenity and wild seclusion of Northum-
berland, where his three sons and other English emigrants had
attempted to found a settlement for the friends of liberty. The
scheme had been abandoned, but Priestley's children stayed on.
Here the amateur chemist built himself a home and a labora-
tory , and settled down to writing and experimenting. Thomas

PRIESTLEY 45

Jefferson came to consult him in regard to the founding of the
University of Virginia. Occasionally he left Northumberland
to attend the meetings of the American Philosophical Society
at Philadelphia before which he read several scientific papers,
or to take tea with George Washington, who had invited him
to come at any time without ceremony.

Toward the end of 1797 Priestley's laboratory was com-
pleted, and before the close of the century he performed his
greatest chemical experiment in America. Still working with
gases, he passed steam over glowing charcoal and collected a
new gas, now known as carbon monoxide. The discovery of
this colorless gas explained for the first time the light blue
flickering flame seen over a furnace fire. Today some of the
gas used in our homes for cooking and heating is manufactured
in essentially the same way originated by Priestley in 1799.

He continued to communicate with his friends of the Lunar
Society to whom he sent accounts of his scientific discoveries.
They in turn did not forget him, and, as late as 1801 Watt and
Boulton presented him with "furnace and other apparatus for
making large quantities of air."

Priestley's long years of preaching and experimenting were
now drawing to a close. Had he not been hampered by his
deep-rooted belief in the phlogiston of Becher, his contribu-
tions in the field of chemistry would undoubtedly have been
greater. Much that he discovered was not very clear to him,
for he saw those things in the false light of the phlogiston
theory. He had railed an hypothesis a cheap commodity, yet
Becher 's hypothesis held him in its power, and clouded almost
every great conclusion he had drawn. Across the sea a chemical
revolution was taking place. Phlogiston as a working founda-
tion was being annihilated. One by one its believers were
forsaking it for a newer explanation born in the chemical
balance. The great protagonists of science were gradually being
won over to the new chemistry. Priestley alone, of the eminent
chemists of the time, clung tenaciously to Becher, So thick-
ribbed a believer was he in this theory that, when his health
began to fail him, and he was no longer strong enough to light
a fire in his laboratory, Priestley sat down in the quiet and
tranquillity of his study to throw the last spear in defense of
phlogiston. "As a Mend of the weak," he wrote to Berthollet
in France, "I have endeavored to give the doctrine of phlogis-
ton a little assistance/'

In this document, the last defense of phologiston> Priestley
honestly and courageously stated his beliefs. He was not alto-

46 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

gether blind to the apparent weaknesses of the theory which
he still championed. "The phlogistic theory," he wrote, "is not
without its difficulties. The chief of them is that we are not
able to ascertain the weight of phlogiston. But neither do any
of us pretend to have weighed light or the element of heat."
He had followed the fight very closely. Here in America his
friends were helping in the destruction of the phlogiston hy-
pothesis. Within the pages of Dr. MitchilTs Medical Reposi-
tory many had discussed the fire principle. James Woodhouse,
Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania,
Pierre Adet, French Minister to the United States and devotee
of chemistry, and John MacClean of Princeton University,
besides Mitchill and Priestley, had threshed out the matter in
a friendly spirit.

Priestley felt keenly the overthrow of this doctrine. It had
served men of science for a century and had pointed out a
way. "The refutation of a fallacious hypothesis," he declared,
"especially one that is so fundamental as this, cannot but be
of great importance to the future progress of science. It is
like taking down a false light which misleads the mariner,
and removing a great obstacle in the path of knowledge. And
there is not perhaps any example of a philosophical hypothesis
more generally received or maintained by persons of greater
eminence than this of the rejection of phlogiston. In this
country I have not heard of a single advocate of phlogiston."
And yet, in spite of this, he was not a mental hermit. He
honestly believed in phlogiston he had been brought up in
it; yet he was open-minded. "Though I have endeavored to
keep my eyes open, I may have overlooked some circumstances
which have impressed the minds of others, and their sagacity,"
he added, "is at least equal to mine." His was not the stupid,
obstinate clinging to an old hypothesis simply because it had
been handed down. He sincerely believed in its truth. "Yet,"
he wrote, "I shall still be ready publicly to adopt those views
of my opponents, if it appears to me they are able to support
them."

Priestley was now past seventy. Mentally he was still very
alert; physically his tired body was beginning to show signs
of weakness. "I have lived a little beyond the usual term of
human life," he told his friends. "Few persons, I believe, have
enjoyed life more than I have. Tell Mr. Jefferson that I think
myself happy to have lived so long under his excellent ad-
ministration, and that I have a prospect of dying in it. It is,
I am confident, the best on the face of the earth, and yet,

PRIESTLEY 47

I hope to rise to something more excellent still" Death did not
crush him. A year after his arrival in America he had lost his
son Henry, after only a few days' illness, and within a
few months his wife, too, was taken from him, But he hoped
soon to meet them again, for he awaited a real material return
of Christ upon earth.

At eight o'clock, Monday morning, February 6, 1804, the
old minister lay in bed knowing the end was very near* He
called for three pamphlets on which he had lately been at
work. Always a careful writer, dearly and distinctly he dic-
tated several changes to be made before they were sent to the
printer. He asked his secretary to repeat the instructions he
had given him. The dying man was dissatisfied: "Sir, you
have put it in your own language; I wish it to be in mine."
He then repeated his instructions almost word for word, and
when it was read to him again, he was contented, "That is
right," he said, "I have done now." Half an hour later he was
dead.

Priestley's home in Northumberland, still in perfect pres-
ervation, was dedicated by the chemists of America many years
ago as a permanent memorial. Close to this building there
has been erected a fireproof museum to house much of his ap-
paratus-flasks, gun barrels, glass tubes, vials, corks, bottles,
balance, crucibles, pneumatic trough-chiefly the work of his
own hands. Among another collection at Dickinson College in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was placed a large compound burning-
glass similar to the one with which he prepared the gas that
has placed the name of Joseph Priestley among the immortals
of chemistry.

IV

CAVENDISH
A MILLIONAIRE MISANTHROPE TURNS TO

THE ELEMENTS

IN 1366 King Edward III of England raised John de Caven-
dish to the exalted office of Lord Chief Justice of the King's
Bench. Sir John could trace his ancestry back to Robert de
Gernon, a famous Norman who aided William the Conqueror.
This same Cavendish was later murdered for revenge, because
his son was accused of slaying Wat Tyler, leader of an insur-
rection. Two centuries later the name of Cavendish was again
glorified by the noted freebooter Thomas Cavendish, the
second Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.

On October 10, 1731, at Nice, a son was born to Lady Anne
Cavendish, who had gone to France in search of health. This
Cavendish was not destined to wield power in public life, as
his parents had hoped. Rather did he devote his long life to
the cultivation of science purely for its own sake. In him the
pioneer spirit was to push back the frontiers of chemical
knowledge.

Here was a singular character who played with chemical
apparatus and weighed the earth, while more than a million
pounds deposited in his name in the Bank of England re-
mained untouched. His bankers had been warned by this ec-
centric man not to come and plague him about his wealth, or
he would immediately take it out of their hands.

Gripped by an almost insane interest in the secrets of na-
ture, this man worked alone, giving not a moment's thought
to his health or appearance. Those who could not understand
the curiosity of this intellectual giant laughed at the richest
man in. England, who never owned but one suit of clothes at
a time and continued to dress in the habiliments of a previous
century, and shabby ones, to boot. This man could have led
the normal life of an active nobleman. His family wanted him
to enter politics, but instead he lived as a recluse, and devoted
his life to scientific research. While other natural philosophers
wasted time and energy squabbling over the priority of this
or that discovery, or arguing one theory or another, Cavendish
could be found among his flasks and tubes, probing, ex-
perimenting, discovering altogether unconcerned about the
plaudits and honors of his contemporaries.

48

CAVENDISH 49

An immense fortune, inherited after he was forty, gave him
that material independence so necessary to the research worker.
A temperament that knew neither jealousy nor ambition
gave him the freedom of mind so vital to the clear and un-
emotional consideration of theoretical problems. It is no won-
der that he was able to accomplish so much in his long life.

A mind so free of dogma could not stand the strict re-
ligious tests applied to candidates for degrees at the univer-
sities. After spending four years at Cambridge, where he knew
the poet Gray as a classmate, Cavendish left without taking
a degree, and went to London.

Unlike Priestley, when the phlogiston theory began to crum-
ble, he did not cling to it to the last, even though he did not
openly accept the newer chemistry of Lavoisier, believing it at
best "nearly as good" as phlogistonism. Elusive phlogiston still
remained only a word, while all the natural philosophers of
Europe and America went hunting for it in every school and
private laboratory. When, in 1772, Priestley was being honored
with a medal for his discovery of soda water, the President of
the Royal Society, Sir John Pringle, remarked: "I must ear-
nestly request you to continue those liberal and valuable in-
quiries. You will remember that fire, the great instrument of
the chemist, is but little known even to themselves, and that it
remains a query whether there be not a certain fluid which is
the cause of this phenomenon." Here was the biggest single
problem in chemistry. If this principle of fire could only be
trapped if it could be captured between the sealed walls of
a bottle to be shown to every sceptical chemist, then Becher
and his followers would be vindicated. To identify it with heat
or light as Scheele and Macquer had done was not sufficient.
It must be ponderable and possess all the other properties of
real matter.

In the sixteenth century the Swiss medicine man, Theo-
phrastus Paracelsus, had noticed bubbles of air rising from
sulfuric acid when pieces of iron were thrown into it. He had
also discovered that this gas could burn, but that was the limit
of his investigation. Later Jan Van Helmont, a Flemish physi-
cian, made a similar observation, but he, too, neglected to
continue the study of this gas.

Then came Cavendish, to whom the pursuit of truth in
nature was a thing almost ordained. He, likewise, had noticed
the evolution of a gas when zinc or iron was dropped into an
acid. He went cautiously to work to investigate this phe-
nomenon. He hated errors and half truths, and while the in-

50 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

struments which, he constructed for his experiments were
crudely fashioned, they were made accurately and painstak-
ingly. This eccentric mortal, who could make the half mythical
calendar of the Hindoos yield consistently numerical results,
proposed to investigate this mysterious gas which burned with
a light blue flame. Perhaps here he would find the key to
phlogiston. Perhaps this gas was phlogiston itselfl

He took a flask and poured sulfuric acid into it. Then into
the acid he threw some bits of zinc Through a cork which
sealed the mouth of the flask, he attached a glass tube to the
end of which a bladder was tied. Slowly at first, and then more
rapidly, bubbles of a colorless gas began to rise from the
surface of the metal to find their way into the bladder. Then,
when the bladder was full, Cavendish sealed it and set it aside.
He repeated this experiment, using iron instead of zinc, and
again collected a bladderful of gas. Still another metal he
tried this time tin, and now a third bladder of gas was col-
lected. Cavendish must make sure of his conclusions. He re-
peated these three experiments using hydrochloric acid instead
of sulfuric, and three more sacs of gases were prepared.

The experimenter now brought a lighted taper to his six
samples of gas. He watched each specimen of gas burn with
the same pale blue flame. Strange that the same gas should be
evolved in each easel What else could this inflammable air
be, but that elusive phlogiston? For had not Becher taught that
metals were compounds of phlogiston and some peculiar
earths? Surely Cavendish had proved that the gas came, not
from the acids or water in the bottles, but from the metals
themselves! But he must not announce this until he had in-
vestigated furtherit would not do to startle the world before
he had made certain he was right.

With the crude instruments at his disposal, he passed the
gases through drying tubes to free them of all moisture, and
then he weighed the pure imprisoned "phlogiston." Though
extremely light he found it actually had weight. It was pon-
derable. He had nailed phlogiston itselfl Now, at the age of
thirty-five, he published an account of this work on Factitious
Airs in the Transactions of the Royal Society.

Priestley, accepting these results, discussed them with the
members of the Lunar Society and the "Lunatics," as they
were called, agreed with him. Boulton especially was enthusi-
astic, "We have long talked of phlogiston," he declared,
"without knowing what we talked about, but now that Dr.
Priestley brought the matter to light we can pour that element

CAVENDISH 51

out of one vessel into another. This Goddess of levity can be
measured and weighed like other matter."

So immersed was Cavendish in the phlogiston of Becher
that he did not know he had isolated, not the principle of fire,
but pure, colorless, hydrogen gas.

When the daring Frenchman, Pilatre de Rozier, heard of
this invisible combustible gas, he tried some queer experi-
ments to startle the Parisians. He inhaled the gas until he
filled his lungs, and then, as the gas issued from his mouth,
set fire to it. Paris held its sides as it watched this Luciferous
devil spitting fire. When, however, he endeavored to set fire
in the same way to a mixture of this gas and common air,
"the consequence was an explosion so dreadful that I imagined
my teeth were all blown out," and he turned to other applica-
tions of the gas. Dr. Charles of Paris constructed the first large
hydrogen-filled balloon, and in the presence of three hun-
dred thousand spectators de Rozier bravely climbed inside the
bag and started on the first aerial voyage in history.

There were many who would not accept this inflammable
hydrogen as the real phlogiston. Even England's literary genius,
Samuel Johnson, busied himself with chemical experiments
Boswell tells us: "a lifelong interest." Now past sixty-three,
he found running around London increasingly arduous. Bos-
well tells us that he sent Mr. Peyton to Temple Bar with
definite instructions: "You will there see a chemist's shop at
which you will be pleased to buy for me an ounce of oil of
vitriol, not spirits of vitriol. It will cost three halfpence."
He, too, was going to investigate.

Cavendish now continued to pry into the problem of what
really happens when a substance burns in the air. He was true
scientist enough to consider what others had already done
about this problem. He set feverishly to work to read some
pamphlets.

In Dean Street, Soho Square, the quietness of which Dickens
so well described in his Tale of Two Cities, Cavendish had
filled a London mansion with his library, and during his long
continued researches in the field of science he had occasion
to refer to many of its volumes. Dressed as a gentleman of the
previous half century, this shabby, awkward, nervous philoso-
pher would come here to draw his books. His soiled, yet frilled
shirt, his cocked hat, buckled shoes, and high coat collar
pulled up over his neck, made this pernickety eccentric a
ludicrous figure. Advancing towards the librarian, the fair-
complexioned man would talk into space while asking for Ms

52 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

books, He would sign a formal receipt for the volumes he was
borrowing this he insisted upon and then walk slowly home,
always taking the same path. He would thrust his walking stick
in the same boot and always hang his hat on the same peg. He
was a creature of habit, rigidly self-imposed, and seldom did
he vary his daily routine.

Here was a lively account of an electrical machine which
Pieter van Musschenbroek, a Dutch physicist, had accidentally
discovered in 1746 while attempting to electrify water in a
bottle This Leyden jar, as it was called, produced sparks of
electricity at the operator's will. It was a curious instrument
and a powerful one whose shocks were claimed to work mirac-
ulous cures. It was shown to gaping crowds throughout rural
England and on the Continent. Nine hundred monks at a mon-
astery in Paris, formed in a single line linked to one another
by iron wire, gave a sudden and tremendous jump as the dis-
charge of this mighty device was sent through them. They
would not take another shock for the Kingdom of France!

Cavendish was fascinated by such stories. He read also about
Franklin's experiments with atmospheric electricity how he
had flown a kite in the summer of 1752 and felt the electric
shock of the thunderstorm. This force must be a powerful
weapon, thought Cavendish, for a year later Dr. Georg Rich-
mann who tried the same experiment had been killed. Here
was a potent instrument which the chemist might use to solve
great mysteries.

He read in another pamphlet of an experiment performed
about ten years after Franklin's. Giovanni Beccaria, an Italian,
had passed some electric sparks through water, and had noticed
a gas issuing from the water. But he missed discovering a great
truth. Cavendish, the acute, saw something significant behind
this ingenious experiment. He read on. The year which
marked the beginning of the American Revolution witnessed
an experiment by an Englishman, John Warltire. This natural
philosopher who helped Priestley in the discovery of oxygen,
was trying to determine whether heat had weight or not. In
a closed three-pint copper flask, weighing about a pound, he
mixed some common air and hydrogen, and set fire to the mix-
ture by means of an electric spark. An explosion took place
inside the flask, and, upon examination, Warltire detected
a loss in weight of the gases, and incidentally the formation of
some dew. Cavendish saw in this another due to a great dis-
covery which had just been missed by inches.

Now he came across another natural philosopher, Pierre

CAVENDISH 55

Joseph Macquer, a scientist of the Jardin des Plantes, who
described an experiment he had performed that same year.
He, too, set fire to hydrogen in common air, and as the gas
burned he placed a white porcelain saucer in the flame of the
inflammable gas. The flame was accompanied by no smoke
the part of the saucer touched by the flame remained particu-
larly white, "only it was wetted by drops of a liquid like water,
which indeed appeared to be nothing else but pure water."

Cavendish heard from his friend Priestley, working away
in his laboratory in Birmingham. On April 18, 1781, this
preacher-scientist, using the spark of an electric machine, fired
a mixture of common air and hydrogen in a closed thick glass
vessel. He was working on a different problem at this time so
that his observations were not very pertinent when he wrote,
"Little is to be expected from the firing of inflammable air in
comparison with the effects of gunpowder." Cavendish's sus-
picions became more and more confirmed.

The facts seemed to be as clear as daylight. He went to his
bottles and his bladders, his gases and his electrical machine to
probe a great secret. The way had been shown him this fact
Cavendish, like Priestley, never denied. He sought no fame in
the pursuit of truth. Not that anything mattered to this mis-
anthrope, yet he could not help peeping into nature's secrets.
He was a machine, working to unfold hidden truthsnot be-
cause they were useful to mankind, but because he delighted
in the hunt.

Suddenly the voice of his housekeeper was heard through
the door which separated his laboratory from the rest of the
house. "I found your note on the hall table this morning, Sir.
You have ordered one leg of mutton for dinner/' "So I have,"
cried Cavendish gruffly. He was not to be disturbed. He had
more important things to think about than his stomach. "But,
Sir," ventured the maid, "some of your friends from the Royal
Society are expected here for dinner." "Well, what of it?"
stammered Cavendish. "But," she repeated, "one leg of mutton
will not be enough for five." "Well, then, get two legs," came
the final reply. She dared not risk another question. She knew
how strange and frugal was her master.

Cavendish was busy repeating the experiments of Warltire,
Macquer, and Priestley. He performed them with greater skill
and care, and with a clearer understanding of what was before
him. He had cut down the underbrush and headed straight for
his goal. Day after day, week after week, this "wisest of all rich
men and richest of all wise men/' hit nearer and nearer to

54 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

his target. And as he worked, the solution of his problem
grew clearer. He did not jump to hasty conclusions. Instead of
common air, which his predecessors had used, Cavendish em-
ployed the newly discovered oxygen. He broke many a flask
as he sparked this explosive mixture of oxygen and hydrogen.
A great number of measurements and weighings had to be
repeated. He had the patience of an unconquerable spirit. Had
he not read of Boerhaave, the Dutchman whose fame as phy-
sician had spread so far that a Chinese mandarin seeking medi-
cal aid had sent a letter addressed: "Boerhaave, celebrated
physician, Europe"? Boerhaave, in an endeavor to discover a
chemical fact, had heated mercury in open vessels day and
night for fifteen successive years. Cavendish could be just as
persevering.

Here was an error in his figures which he had not noticed
before. He must dry his gases to remove every trace of water.
And there was another matter he had failed to take into ac-
count in measuring the volumes of his gases. He proceeded to
change the volumes of his gases to conform to standard con-
ditions. Where the ordinary experimenter detected one flaw,
this recluse saw two and sometimes many more. As his cal-
culations filled page after page, his results began to verify one
another. Now, after more than ten years of labor, Cavendish
was almost ready to make public his proofs. Had he not, like
his contemporaries, delayed the publication of these results,
he would not have started a controversy which lasted half a
century.

Before March, 1783, he made known his experiments to
Priestley. Then his friend Blagden was informed of his work,
and the following June, Blagden notified Lavoisier. The year
1783 passed and Cavendish had not yet published the result
of his work. He never displayed that keen desire to rush into
print which so generally ensues an important discovery. He was
interested in experimentation not publicity through publica-
tion. Not until the following January did he read his memoir
on Experiments on Air before the Royal Society of England.

And this is what he told them: "Water consists of dephlogis-
ticated air united with phlogiston." Translated into the lan-
guage of modern chemistry, Cavendish informed his hearers
that water was really a compound of two gases, hydrogen and
oxygen, in the proportion of two volumes of hydrogen, to one
volume of oxygen. That clear, life-sustaining, limpid liquid
was not the simple elementary substance all the savants of the
world thought it to be. Not at all. The crowning wonder of

CAVENDISH 55

chemistry had formed it out of two separate invisible gases.

What a startling announcement! Water a compound of two
tasteless vapors! Where were his proofs? Cavendish told them
quietly and without emotion. He had introduced into a glass
cylinder, arranged so that its contents could be sparked with-
out unsealing the vessel, four hundred and twenty-three mea-
sures of hydrogen gas and one thousand parts of common air.
When they were sparked "all the hydrogen and about one-
fifth of the common air lost their elasticity and condensed into
a dew which lined the glass." Hydrogen and oxygen had com-
bined to form pure potable water.

But how could he be sure that this dew was really water?
They were certain to ask this question. He had to prove it for
them. He collected very large volumes of the gases 500,000
grain measures of hydrogen and 1,250,000 grain measures of
common air, and burned the mixture slowly. "The burnt air
was made to pass through a glass cylinder, eight feet long and
three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The two airs were con-
veyed slowly into this cylinder by separate copper pipes, pass-
ing through a brass plate which stopped up the end of the
cylinder." He thus condensed "upward of one hundred and
thirty-five grains of water which had no taste or smell and left
no sensible sediment when evaporated to dryness, neither did
it yield any pungent smell during the evaporation. In short, it
seemed pure water." Positive enough experiments tests that
were infallible, and yet Cavendish said "it seemed " He sus-
pected his listeners would not be convinced. Water a com-
pound of two gases incredible!

Cavendish went further. "If it is only the oxygen of the
common air which combines with the hydrogen,*' he argued,
"there should be left behind in the cylinder four-fifths of the
atmosphere, as a colorless gas in which mice die and wood
will not burn." He tested the remnant of the air left in the
cylinders and found that to be the case. The nitrogen gas was
colorless and mephitic. He weighed all the gases and all the
apparatus before and after sparking, and found that nothing
had been added or lost. Only oxygen and twice its volume of
hydrogen had disappeared, and in their place he always found
water of the same weight.

To convince the sceptics, Cavendish varied his experiments
once more. Now he used only pure gases, not common air but
pure oxygen obtained, as Priestley had shown him, by heating
the red powder of mercury. He took a glass globe (still pre-
served in the University of Manchester), holding 8800 grain

56 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

measures, furnished with a brass stop-cock, and an apparatus
for firing air by electricity. The globe was well exhausted by
an air-pump, and then filled with a mixture of pure hydrogen
and oxygen. Then the gases were fired by electricity as before.
The same liquid water resulted and the same gases disappeared.
Again he weighed the gases and their product as well as the
glass globe, before and after combining them. Again the same
remarkable result two volumes of hydrogen always united
with one volume of oxygen to form a weight of water equal
to the weights of the gases. He had proved it conclusively.

A few years later Deiman and Paets van Troostwijk passed
electric sparks from a frictional machine through water and
decomposed it into hydrogen and oxygen. Fourcroy, in France,
left burning 37,500 cubic inches of hydrogen and oxygen con-
tinuously for a week, and got nothing else but water. There
could no longer be any question about the nature of water.

Two months after Cavendish read his paper to the Royal
Society, Le Due communicated the contents of this same dis-
covery to James Watt, the inventor, who had likewise been
interested in experiments on the nature of water. In con-
sequence of this communication, Watt transmitted a report
to the same Society, claiming its discovery as early as April of
the preceding year. Lavoisier laid claim to its discovery on the
basis of an oral report submitted in conjunction with Laplace
to the French Academy in June, 1783. In this report he an-
nounced the composition of water without acknowledging any
indebtedness to other scientists, even though he had by that
time been informed by Blagden of the work of Cavendish.

Cavendish was not interested in such squabbles. When, in
August, 1785, the shy, unsocial chemist visited Birmingham,
where Watt was living, he met the Scotch engineer and spent
some time with him discussing their researches. Watt, too, was
not looking for notoriety, and while they said not a word about
the priority of the discovery of water, both felt that Lavoisier
might have been gracious enough to have acknowledged that
his work on water was based on their previous work. Ten years
later came Lavoisier's tragic end, and by 1819 the last of the
figures directly concerned in the water controversy had died.

Another twenty years passed, and little was mentioned of
this matter. Then Dominique Arago, celebrated astronomer
and Secretary of the French Academy, came to England to
gather material for a eulogy of James Watt. He made what
seemed to him a thorough examination of the water contro-
versy, and came to the conclusion that James Watt was the

CAVENDISH 57

first to discover the composition of water, and that Cavendish
had later learned of it from a letter written by Watt to Priest-
ley. And while the principals of these wranglings lay in their
graves, their friends started a turmoil which did not subside for
ten years. The friends of Watt accused Cavendish of deliberate
plagiarism. To vindicate Cavendish, the President of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science published
a lithographed facsimile of Cavendish's original notebook, and
to-day the world gives credit for the discovery of the nature
of water to him who sought this honor least.

The more Cavendish frowned upon fame the more fame
wooed him. At twenty-nine he had been elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society, following in the footsteps of his father,
who had been honored with that society's Copley Medal for
inventing the maximum and minimum thermometers. Every
Thursday this awkward, gruff-speaking philosopher attended
its meetings to keep in close touch with the progress of science.
He seldom missed a meeting, and while he kept a good deal to
himself, his ear was always cocked for new developments in
science He was appointed member of a committee to consider
the best means of protecting a powder magazine against light-
ning, and the following year was placed in charge of a
meteorological bureau which was to make and record daily
observations of temperature, pressure, moisture and wind
velocity around the building of the Royal Society.

Cavendish was even persuaded now and then to attend a
soiree of the Society held at the home of its president, Joseph
Banks. He would be seen standing on the landing outside,
wanting courage to open the door and face the people as-
sembled, until the sound of stair-mounting footsteps forced
him to go in. On one such occasion this tall, thin, timid man
was seen in the center of a group of distinguished people. His
eyes downcast, he was visibly nervous and uncomfortable. Sud-
denly he flew panic-stricken from the group and rushed out of
the building. He had been talking with an acquaintance when
John Ingenhousz, Dutch physician to Maria Theresa, ap-
peared. Cavendish recognized this scientist by his queer habit
of wearing a coat boasting buttons made of the recently dis-
covered metal platinum. With Ingenhousz was a gentleman
who had heard of Cavendish and wanted to be introduced to
the illustrious philosopher. Cavendish was annoyed almost to
frenzy, but managed to control his temper. But when the dig-
nified Austrian visitor began to laud him as a famous and most
distinguished man of science, then Cavendish, with a queer

58 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

cry like that of a frightened animal, bolted from the room.

Cavendish had turned the family residence, a beautiful villa
at Clapham, into a workshop and laboratory. The upper rooms
became his astronomical laboratory, for he was interested in
every phase of natural phenomena. On the spacious lawn he
had built a large wooden stage which led to a very high tree.
When he was sure not to be seen, he would climb this tree to
make observations of the atmosphere. Often, in the dusk of
the evening, Cavendish would walk down Nightingale Lane
from Clapham Common to Wandsworth Common. He took this
walk alone, rambling along in the middle of the road, per-
forming queer antics with his walking stick, and uttering
strange, subdued noises. Once when, to his utter horror, he
was observed climbing over a stile by two ladies, he forsook
that road forever, and thenceforth took his solitary walks long
after sundown.

There is only one likeness of Cavendish in existence a
water-color sketch which hangs in the British Museum. It was
impossible to make him sit for his portrait. The painter Alex-
ander had to sketch this one piecemeal while Cavendish was
completely unaware that he was being taken.

Cavendish was a confirmed woman-hater. He never mar-
riedhe could not even look at a woman. Returning home
one day, he happened to meet a female servant with broom
and pail on the stairway. So annoyed was he at seeing her
that he immediately ordered a back staircase to be built. He
had already dismissed a number of maids who had crossed his
path in the house. On another occasion, he was sitting one
evening with a group of natural philosophers at dinner, when
there was a sudden rush to the windows overlooking the street
Cavendish, the scientist, was curious. He, too, walked over to
gaze, as he expected, at some spectacular heavenly phenome-
non. Pshaw! he grunted in disgust. It was only a pretty girl
flirting from across the street I

Although a misanthrope, Cavendish was, strangely enough,
charitable. His unworldlmess made him an easy mark for un-
scrupulous beggars and borrowers, and he was even addicted
to handing out blank checks. He naively believed every charity
monger who accosted him. One of his librarians became ill,
and Cavendish was approached for help a hundred pounds
would have more than sufficed. But Cavendish, too impatient
to listen to the verbose details of the plea, asked if ten
thousand pounds would do. It didl

As an experimenter Cavendish was superb to him science

CAVENDISH 59

was measurement. In 1781 he had collected, on sixty successive
days, hundreds of samples of air, gathering them m all sorts
of ingenious ways, and from as many different places as he
could possibly reach. He subjected these samples to innumer-
able experiments, weighings, and calculations. He was repeat-
ing the work of Priestley and others, which was to lead him
to the conclusion that the atmosphere had an almost uniform
composition in spite of its complex nature. He was the first
accurate analyst of the air. He had found air to contain twenty
per cent oxygen by firing it with pure hydrogen gas in a
glass tube. During these experiments, a small quantity of an
acid had found its way into the water in the eudiometer. He
was not the first to detect this impurity; Priestley, Watt, and
Lavoisier had all observed it, but they were at a loss to explain
its formation. Cavendish, however, was not satisfied to leave
this observation without a reasonable explanation. Again he
showed his powers as an original researcher. By a series of
carefully planned and skillfully executed experiments he
tracked this minute quantity of acid to its source. He found it
to be the result of a chemical reaction between the nitrogen
and oxygen of the air, during the passage of the electric spark
through the eudiometer. This he demonstrated privately to
some friends. Nitrogen and oxygen had united to form oxides
of nitrogen which Priestley had already prepared. This dis-
covery was the basis of the first process used in the commercial
fixation of nitrogen utilized in the manufacture of fertilizers
and high explosives.

Cavendish determined to change all the nitrogen of the air
into nitrous acid by repeated sparking of the air in an enclosed
vessel. During these experiments he left records in his note-
books of the crowning achievement which stamped him as one
of the outstanding scientific experimenters among the early
chemists. It had taken a hundred years to discover a gas which
Cavendish during these experiments had isolated from the air.
What every investigator before him, and for a century after
him, had either missed entirely or ignored, Cavendish noticed
and recorded.

A hundred years of chemical progress passed. Lord Ray-
leigh and Sir William Ramsey, two of his compatriots, while
searching for a suspected element in the air, turned over the
pages of Cavendish's memoirs, at Dewar's suggestion, and read
this statement: "I made an experiment to determine whether
the whole or a given portion of the nitrogen of the atmosphere
could be reduced to nitrous acid. . . , Having condensed as

60 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

much as I could of the nitrogen I absorbed the oxygen, after
which only a small bubble of air remained unabsorbed, which
certainly was not more than 1/120 of the bulk of nitrogen, so
that if there is any part of the nitrogen of our atmosphere
which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous
acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120
part of the whole."

Here was a clue to their search. They repeated the experi-
ments of Cavendish and isolated a small volume of gas from
the nitrogen of the air. They subjected it to every test for an
unknown, and identified a new element. Small wonder that this
colorless, odorless, insoluble gas would not form nitrous acid,
as Cavendish had remarked. This idle gas, argon, was found
to be incapable of combining with even the most active ele-
ment. It was present in the atmosphere to the extent of one
part in 107 by volume. Henry Cavendish had recorded one part
in 120 remarkable accuracy in the light of a century of
experimental advance.

From this clue came also the later discovery of three other
inert elements of the air. From liquid argon, the same scientists
separated new "neon," hidden "krypton," and "xenon" (the
stranger) present to the extent of one part in eighty thousand,
twenty million, and one hundred and seventy million parts of
air respectively. With modern apparatus at his disposal it is
not difficult to believe that Cavendish might have been the dis-
coverer of these noble gases one hundred years before they were
given to the world.

Cavendish's writings were rendered somewhat obscure by the
verbiage of phlogiston. He knew no other chemical language.
When the flood of the new chemistry began to rise in France,
when the chemical revolution which followed the French Revo-
lution began to question and destroy the beliefs in which he
had been reared, Cavendish changed to a new field of scientific
research. And while the world of science was set agog by the
new developments in chemistry, Cavendish was busy measuring
the force with which two large leaden balls attracted two small
leaden balls. He was finding the weight of the earth. He would
rather do this than be embroiled in the heat and fury of foolish
discussions over new theories.

Cavendish left London on very rare occasions. He visited Sir
Humphry Davy a number of times to watch him experiment
on the alkalis in which he used some pieces of platinum which
Cavendish had given him. During these meetings his conversa-
tion could not have proved very stimulating. The utterance of

CAVENDISH 61

unnecessary words he regarded as criminal. Once, while stay-
ing in a hotel at Calais with his younger brother Frederick,
whom he saw seldom, they happened to pass a room through
the open door of which they could see a body laid out for
burial. Henry was much attached to his brother, yet not a single
word passed between them until the following morning, when,
on the road to Paris, the following lengthy conversation broke
their silence:

Frederick to Henry: "Did you see the corpse?"

Henry to his brother: "I did."

This man never wasted a single word, spoken or written, on
the beauties of natural scenery, even though he had spent his
whole life engrossed in the study of nature. In the diary of his
travels we may come, with surprise, upon the following: "At
I observed ." What? a piece of sculpture or a beau-
tiful sunset? No! only the readings of a barometer or ther-
mometer. He inherited from his father an intense interest in
mathematical measurements. On those rare occasions when he
travelled in his carriage, he attached to the wheels an antique
wooden instrument, called a "way-wiser/* to show him how
far he was travelling. His biographer has summed up his life
thus: "Such was he in life, a wonderful piece of intellectual
clockwork, and as he lived by rule he died by it, predicting his
death as if it had been the eclipse of a great luminary."

One evening Cavendish returned as usual from the Royal
Society and went quietly to his study. He was ill, but this non-
religious man told no one. Soon growing worse, he rang the
bell and summoned his servant. "Mind what I say," he told
him, "I am going to die. When I am dead, but not till then, go
to my brother, Frederick, and tell him of the event. Go/' An
hour passed Cavendish was growing weaker. Again he rang
for his valet "Repeat to me what I have ordered you to do,"
he demanded. This was done, "Give me the lavender water.
Go."

Another half-hour passed, and the servant, returning, found
his master a corpse. Thus passed England's great chemical
luminary, leaving part of his fortune to science, and his fame
to be commemorated in the Cavendish Laboratory for Experi-
mental Research at Cambridge, where today other pracles are
travelling the path he helped illuminate.

V

LAVOISIER
THE GUILLOTINE ROBS THE CHEMICAL BALANCE

DURING the frenzy of the French Revolution, when the King
and Queen were guillotined for conspiracy against the
liberty of the nation, and a dozen men sitting in the Palace of
the Tuilleries were sending thousands to their death, a scientist
was quietly working in a chemical laboratory in Paris.

This scientist was a marked man. He had given much of his
energy and wealth to the service of France, but hatreds were
bitter in those days and he had many enemies. Yet, while the
streets of the city were seething with excitement, and his foes
were planning to destroy him, he stood over his associate,
Seguin, and slowly dictated notes to his young wife beside him.

Seguin was seated in a chair in the laboratory. He was
hermetically enclosed in a varnished silk bag, rendered per-
fectly air tight except for a slit over his mouth left open for
breathing. The edges of this hole were carefully cemented
around his mouth with a mixture of pitch and turpentine.
Everything emitted by the body of Seguin was to be retained
in the silken bag except what escaped from his lungs during
respiration. This respired air was passed into various flasks
and bottles, finally to be subjected to an accurate and complete
analysis. Whatever escaped from Seguin's body in the form of
perspiration or other waste material was to remain sealed in
the silken covering.

Lavoisier was investigating the processes of respiration and
perspiration of the human body. Weighings of Seguin, the silk
bag, the inhaled air, and the respired air, and determinations
of the gain in weight of the bag and loss in weight of his asso-
ciate, were made on the most accurate balances in all France.
Lavoisier trusted his scales implicitly. But these experiments
were never to be completed by him. The door of his laboratory
was pushed open with sudden violence. A pompous leader,
wearing the liberty cap of the revolutionists, entered the room,
followed by the soldiers of the Revolutionary Tribunal and an
uncontrollable mob.

Marat, member of the National Assembly and self-styled
Friend of the People, had attacked the scientist in bitter, dan-
gerous terms: "I denounce to you this master of charla-

62

LAVOISIER 65

tans, Monsieur Lavoisier, son of a rent collector, apprentice
chemist, tax collector, steward of ammunition and saltpetre,
administrator of discount funds, secretary to the King, member
of the Academy of Sciences. Just think of it, this little gentle-
man enjoyed an income of forty thousand livres and has no
other claim to public gratitude than to have put Paris in
prison by intercepting the circulation of air through it by
means of a wall which cost us poor people thirty-three million
francs, and to have transferred the gunpowder from the
Arsenal to the Bastille the night of the 12th or 15th of July,
a devil's intrigue to get himself elected administrator of the
Department of Paris. Would to heaven he had been hanged
from the lamp post!"

Lavoisier had offended this man years before. He had ex-
posed Marat as a very poor chemist when the latter had tried
to gain election to the Academy of Sciences. The future revolu-
tionary had struck back and denounced Lavoisier as "the puta-
tive father of all the discoveries that are noised about, who
having no ideas of his own snatches at those of others, but
having no ability to appreciate them, rapidly abandons them
and changes his theories as he does his shoes." The learned
societies of France had been suppressed for harboring disloyal
citizens. Even among his scientific collaborators Lavoisier had
enemies. Fourcroy and de Morveau, scientists and members of
the Assembly and Convention, loathed the old government,
and Lavoisier, aristocrat and appointee of the King, became an
object of their hate.

Paris was ready to listen to such inflammatory words. The
conflict of the privileged classes and the third estate had cul-
minated in the Reign of Terror, during which a Committee of
Public Safety sent traitors, conspirators, and suspects to a quick
doom. The deluge had come. Lavoisier had been, until very
recently, a member of the Fermes G^n&ales, a sort of Depart-
ment of Internal Revenue made up of aristocrats. It was
essentially a financial company whose members paid the gov-
ernment a nominal sum for the privilege of collecting taxes
which they themselves kept. They had been guilty of out-
rageous abuses and were finally ordered disbanded.

As the document for his arrest was read, Lavoisier serenely
and bravely made ready to obey the order. Saying goodbye to
his wife, he entrusted his unfinished manuscript to Seguin and
left his laboratory for the last time. In May, 1794, he was
called by the Committee of Finance before the Revolutionary
Tribunal. He was tried and falsely convicted on the grounds

64 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

that he had plotted against the government by watering the
soldiers' tobacco, and had appropriated revenue that belonged
to the State. Others before him had been condemned for less.
In spite of the petitions of his friends in the Bureau of Con-
sultation, who reminded the judge of the greatness of this man
of science, in spite of Lavoisier's years of unselfish devotion
to his country, Coffinhal, president of the Tribunal, would not
relent. "The Republic has no use for savants/' The sentence
was death, and no appeal could be taken. Carried in a cart
to the Place de la Revolution, he and twenty-seven others were
to be decapitated. The third to be executed was his father-in-
law, and then the head of Lavoisier fell into the insatiable
basket of the guillotine. "It took but a moment to cut off that
head, though a hundred years perhaps will be required to pro-
duce another like it." This was the verdict of the great mathe-
matician Lagrange, then living in Paris. Truer words were
seldom uttered. Thus died France's great chemical revolution-
ist. His burial place has never been found for the body was
lost in that mad upheaval.

Just a month before, Priestley had fled from the religious
bigotry of England. His great work had already been done.
But Lavoisier was cut off in the midst of productive investiga-
tions, and who can say what might have come from this genius?
"Until it is realized that the gravest crime of the French Revo-
lution was not the execution of the King, but of Lavoisier,
there is no right measure of values; for Lavoisier was one of
the three or four greatest men France has produced." This
is the judgment of posterity.

The eighteenth century witnessed the efforts of other chem-
ists besides Priestley and Cavendish. Hundreds were working
with the flask, the crucible, and the balance. And while the
great oracles of chemistry were discovering new truths or un-
masking old errors, these lesser lights kept plodding away,
building up a storehouse of chemical facts which soon cried
out for order. Every bit of chemical information dug out of
the fruitful mines of Europe's laboratories was put to the test
of phlogiston. Phlogiston was the all-explaining touchtstone. If
this universal principle seemed unable to fit a new discovery
into the structure of chemistry, then those ingenious creatures
of the crucible could twist-it into a form which would fit.

Scheele's chlorine, that yellowish greenish gas which both
kills and purifies, and which the Swedish apothecary had torn
out of muriatic acid, was explained by the plogistonists as
being oxy-muriatic acid. Water was a compound of the phlo-

LAVOISIER 65

gisticated air of Cavendish and the dephlogisticated air of
Priestley. Rutherford's nitrogen was mephitic air devoid of
phlogiston. The language of chemistry, too, was stagnant; it had
not been revised or rejuvenated since the ancient days of
alchemy, and its literature was filled with such barbarous ex-
pressions as phagadenic water, pomphlix, oil of tartar per
deliquim, butter of antimony, calcothar and materia perlata
of Kerkrmgius. Yet in spite of this confusion of terms and
explanations, the facts kept piling up, waiting only for some-
one to dispel the mist that enshrouded and enveloped chem-
istry. It is truly remarkable that, working in such a wilderness,
those early researchers were able to extricate so much of
permanent value

Lavoisier's appearance at this juncture was timely. Chem-
istry was in dire need of such a figure. Here was a man of
influence whose voice was not lost. His were the words of power
and position, not only in the councils of natural philosophers,
where he had no peer, but also in the assemblies of politics,
where he played a leading part. Lavoisier was heard, and
science profited by the tactics of the publicity agent. Liebig
said of him, "He discovered no new body, no new property, no
natural phenomenon previously unknown His immortal glory
consists in this he infused into the body of science a new
spirit.'*

Lavoisier's mind was clear. He had been trained in mathe-
matics and physics Few possessed better foundations for the
pursuit of the science of chemistry. His well-to-do parents had
sent this imaginative boy to the College Mazarm, where at
first he intended to study law. But he soon turned to science.
He was greatly influenced by Guillaume Rouelle who held the
position of "Demonstrator" at the Jardm des Plantes. For more
than a century and a half it was the custom here for the Pro-
fessor of Chemistry to lecture on the theories and principles of
science. He performed no experiments and never soiled his
fingers with chemicals His realm was theory

Bourdelain was Professor at the time. Concluding his dis-
course he would wind up with "Such, gentlemen, are the prin-
ciples and the theory of this operation. The Demonstrator will
now prove them to you by his experiments." And as Bourde-
lain stepped out of the room, Rouelle appeared, greeted with
loud applause Fashionable audiences came to listen to him.
Lavoisier sat spellbound as Rouelle, instead of proving all
the theory of the Professor, would, with his skillful experi-
ments, destroy it. The young student never forgot how Rouelle

6b CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

one day became excited and waxed eloquent. Removing his wig
which he hung on a utort, and throwing off his waistcoat, he
suddenly rushed out of the lecture hall, in search of some
chemical apparatus, still absent-mindedly continuing to lecture
while out of sight and hearing of his audience.

On one of his scientific excursions Lavoisier met Linnaeus,
the great Swedish naturalist and botanist, who, too, captivated
his interest He definitely decided to devote his life to science

Young Lavoisier's activities soon became so varied that he
had scarcely time to eat. He started to write a drama, La
Nouvelle Heloise, which was never completed. One full day
each week he lived in his laboratory never leaving it for a
moment. Besides this he worked at his furnace every day from
six to nine in the morning and from seven to ten at night. He
would not allow himself the luxury of leisurely eating To
save time, he put himself on a bread and milk diet. One of his
friends felt the need of warning Antoine "I beseech you," he
wrote, "to arrange your studies on the basis that one additional
year on earth is of more value to you than a hundred years in
the memory of man." Accompanying this letter was a package
containing a bowl of thin, milky porridge. Lavoisier, however,
did not adopt this suggestion. Before he was twenty-five, the
French Academy of Sciences had already heard from him on
such diverse subjects as the divining rod, hypnotism, and the
construction of chairs for invalids. He soon gained recognition,
and was elected a member of this body. Young as he was, he
directed an active discussion about a wholesome drinking water
supply for the city of Paris, and his practical mmd led him
to advocate fire hydrants as a protection against great con-
flagrations in crowded communities.

In the year following his admission to the Academy,
Lavoisier became associated with the Fermes Ge'ne'rales, and
made the acquaintance of Jacques Paulze de Chastenolles.
Monsieur Paulze, member of the^ Fermes Ge'ne'rales, was an
aristocrat at whose home gathered many men prominent in the
social and political life of FranceTurgot, Comptroller Gen-
eral of France; Laplace, greatest of French astronomers;
Franklin, the American; Condorcet, mathematician and hu-
manitarian; and Pierre Bu ont de Nemours, who later, marked
for destruction, emigrated to America with his sons, to found
,the great industrial institution that still bears his name. To
Paulze's home came also Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, young,
good-looking, keen-minded, a good conversatonalist, and eager
to mix with the intellectual elite of France. Lavoisier soon be-

LAVOISIER 67

came interested, not so much in the distinguished guests, but
in a petite, blue-eyed brunette, the daughter of Paulze Lovable
little Marie Anne Pierretti became very fond of the handsome,
gray-eyed, simple-mannered scientist Her father noticed this
and encouraged the lovers Antoine was eligible' Soon the busy
man found time to walk with Mane Anne, and he would talk
to this fourteen-year-old girl about love, and his career in the
field of science She understood She was going to study English,
Latin and even science so that she could help him in his work.
Besides, she had a talent for drawing and they planned to have
Mane do the drawing and plates for his scientific memoirs.
The courtship was a short one, and when they were married
that year they were given a beautiful home at 17 Boulevard
de la Madelame with a salon over which Mme. Lavoisier was
to preside. It was a happy marriage, and Marie never showed
that violence of temper which she displayed years later when
she remarried. During a stormy domestic quarrel she is said
to have ordered her second husband, Count Rumford, out of
the house with the warning never to return.

Lavoisier's first research in chemistry was a simple analysis
of gypsum Then this son of a wealthy Parisian merchant di-
rected all his skill toward an attack upon the old notion that
water could be converted into earth and rocks Ever since
Thales of Miletus, worshiping the Nile, had attributed the
origin of all things to water, science had believed that water
became stone and earth by evaporation. For twenty centuries
this had been taught. Men had taken flasks of water and heated
them over fires until all the water had boiled out Inside the
flasks they had found dull, earthy substances which must have
come from the water Van Helmont had planted a small wil-
low tree weighing five pounds in a pot of two hundred pounds
of earth that had been thoroughly dried and weighed. He had
nourished the plant for fifteen years with nothing but water,
and t^ie tree had increased in weight to one hundred and sixty-
nine pounds. The soil having in the meantime lost but two
ounces, he had "proved" that water had been converted into
one hundred and sixty-four pounds of solid material in the
tree' Lavoisier saw the obvious fallacy of this demonstration.

"As the usefulness and accuracy of chemistry," he held,
"depend entirely upon the determination of the weights of the
ingredients and products, too much precision cannot be em-
ployed in this part of the subject, and for this purpose we
must be provided with good instruments." Borrowing the most
sensitive balance of the French Mint, he weighed a round-

63 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

bottomed flask which he had cleaned until it glistened in the
sunlight. Into this flask he poured a measured volume of drink-
ing water, which he distilled into another carefully weighed
flask. Just as he expected, a gray, earthy material clung to the
bottom of the empty flask He weighed the flask and its earthy
impurity and subtracted from this the weight of the flask, thus
obtaining the weight of the earthy impurity. He compared this
weight of earth with the loss in weight sustained by the drink-
ing water during distillation. The weights were identicall This
earth must have come from the drinking water! But he had still
to answer this question: Was this solid impurity which clung
to the glass dissolved in the drinking water, or had the water
changed into an earthy material?

He took a pelican, an alchemical flask shaped so that a
boiling liquid would drop back again into the same flask. Into
this pelican he poured a definite weight of pure sparkling rain-
water and boiled the liquid over a low even fire. For one
hundred consecutive days he distilled this rain-water, never
allowing the fire beneath the flask to go out. When he finally
stopped the distillation, he noticed a few specks of solid ma-
terial floating in the water. They had not been there before. He
weighed the pelican and its contents. There was no loss in
weight. The distilled water, too, had remained constant in
weight during the long boiling Then he placed the pelican on
a balance and found it had lost weght equal to that of the
solid material in the flask. These seventeen grains of mud,
he concluded, must have come from the glass of the pelican.
There was no other explanation. The water itself had remained
unchanged. Water could never be transmuted into earth With
the aid of his balance, Lavoisier had destroyed another false
heritage of antiquity.

Lavoisier was a careful worker with an idea at the back of
his head which grew clearer as he read or repeated the experi-
ments of his predecessors and contemporaries. Slowly he began
to weed out the faulty explanations and weak theories that had
crept into chemistry. Phlogiston did not fit into his scheme of
chemistry. While the rest of Europe clung to it tenaciously he
could see through it. To him it was a myth, an idle mischievous
theory with neither foundation nor substance. There must be
a simpler and more logical explanation of burning than
Becher's phlogiston. With the coolness and dexterity of a
skilled surgeon, he began to dissect the old idea. The creature
was rotten to the core.
With scientific intuition he rejected this theory before he

LAVOISIER 69

had thought of a substitute, but he was going to find an alterna-
tive. This practical Lavoisier who, at twenty-two, received a
gold medal from the Academy of Sciences for working out the
best method of lighting the streets of Paris; this same Lavoisier
who, before submitting his essay, had worked for months on
this problem, shutting himself up in a dark room for six weeks
to render his eyes more sensitive to different lights; he was
going to find the true explanation of burningl Phlogiston
would not do.

He quickly dropped phlogiston and jumped to "caloric," or
heat. Half a century before, the French Academy had offered
a prize for an essay on the nature of heat All the three win-
ners favored a materialistic theory It was not strange, there-
fore, that Lavoisier accepted the explanation that heat was
a subtle fluid which penetrated the pores of all known sub-
stances. He frankly admitted, however, that he had no very
clear conception of the real nature of this caloric. "Since there
are no vessels which are capable of retaining it," he wrote,
"we can only come at the knowledge of its properties by effects
which are fleeting and difficultly ascertainable."

In avoiding the pitfall of one monstrosity, Lavoisier fell
into the snare of caloric, the imbecile heir of phlogiston. It
is difficult to explain this widespread acceptance of caloric.
There were some, however, who recognized the evil kinship of
phlogiston and caloric, among them Benjamin Thompson, the
first great chemist of American birth. This adventurer had
left Massachusetts to fight on the side of the English during
our War for Independence In Bavaria, as Count Rumford, he
had a model law passed to put a stop to mendicancy. Prob-
lems of science also interested him. He made a study of foods
and promptly tested his pet theories while feeding the troops
of the Elector of Bavaria. While in charge of the military
foundry in Munich, he bored through a cannon surrounded by
a wooden box containing two gallons of water, which in two
hours began to boil. The astonishment of the bystanders was
indescribable. Water boiling without fire! He had transformed
the mechanical force of a horse-driven boring machine into the
energy of heat. To Count Rumford heat was a form of energy,
the energy of particles of matter in motion as Newton and
Lomonossov, a Russian, had heldnot a ponderable fluid. He
knew that caloric would soon perish. To a friend he wrote,
"I am persuaded that I shall live a sufficiently long time to
have the satisfaction of seeing caloric interred with phlogiston
in the same tomb."

70 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

But caloric was not quite so vicious a theory. Here was the
great difference between the myth of phlogiston and the fiction
of caloric. Lavoisier did not depend upon caloric to explain
the facts of chemical changes. His chemistry was not based
upon vaporous caloric, while Becher's phlogiston was the actual
foundation o the structure of chemistry. Lavoisier wanted to
crush phlogiston* To appease those chemists who demanded a
substitute, he gave them the comparatively harmless prescrip-
tion of caloric. Believe it or not, caloric would do no harm
either way. It served as a vicarious palliative to save chemistry
from the lethal dose of phlogiston.

But even Lavoisier was not satisfied with caloric as an
explanation of burning. The phenomenon of burning still
puzzled him He was determined to solve it scientifically.
Neither the fetish of phlogiston nor the belief in caloric was
going to decide it. "We must trust in nothing but facts. These
are presented to us by nature and cannot deceive. We ought in
every instance to submit our reasoning to the test of experi-
ment. It is in those things which we neither see nor feel that
it is especially necessary to guard against the extravagances of
imagination which forever incline to step beyond the bounds
of truth.'* Rich enough to secure the best in apparatus and
chemicals, he spared neither wealth nor effort. As he worked,
he kept building chemical structures in his mind, rejecting one
after another as his furnace brought cogent objections.

Lavoisier worked tirelessly. He was bound to conquer the
mystery of burning. After years of experimentation he reached
a conclusion. He went to his desk and penned to the French
Academy a memoir to be kept hidden and unread until he had
completed further experiments. In this sealed note he wrote:

"A week ago I discovered that sulfur on being heated gained
weight. It is the same with phosphorus. This increase in weight
comes from an immense quantity of air. I am persuaded that
the increase in weight of metal calces is due to the same cause.
Since this discovery seemed to be one of the most interesting
which had been made since the time of Becher, I have felt it
my duty to place this communication in the hands of the secre-
tary of the Academy, to remain a secret until I can publish my
experiments." Always shrewd, Lavoisier made sure that no one
would snatch away from him the credit for the discovery of a
great truth. By entrustng his secret memoir to the Academy
he established his priority to the discovery of the nature of
burning.

This was November 1, 1772. Priestley had not yet concen-

LAVOISIER 71

trated the heat of the sun's rays upon his red mercury; oxygen
was still undiscovered. For three years more Lavoisier labored
to unravel further the meaning of fire.

In October 1774, Priestley visited his fellow scientist in his
laboratory in Paris, and gave him an account of his experi-
ments on the preparation of oxygen. Macquer was present and
helped to correct Priestley's imperfect French. Lavoisier, armed
with this information, immediately performed his classic
Twelve Day Experiment.

"I took a matrass (a glass retort)/' he wrote, "of about
thirty-six cubic inches capacity, and having bent the neck so
as to allow its being placed in the furnace in such a manner
that the extremity of its neck might be inserted under a bell
glass placed in a trough of quicksilver, I introduced four ounces
of pure mercury into the matrass. I lighted a fire in the
furnace which I kept up almost continually during twelve days.
Nothing remarkable took place during the first day. On the
second day, small red particles began to appear on the surface
of the mercury: these during the four or five following days
gradually increased in size and number, after which they ceased
to increase in either respect. At the end of twelve days, I
extinguished the fire."

He examined the air which was left in the matrass. It
amounted to about five-sixths of its former bulk, and was no
longer fit for respiration or combustion. Animals were suf-
focated in it in a few seconds, and it immediately extinguished
a lighted taper. This remaining gas was, of course, nitrogen.
He then took the forty-five grains of red powder which were
formed, and heated them over a furnace. From these he col-
lected about forty-one and a half grains of pure mercury and
about eight cubic inches of a gas "greatly more capable of sup-
porting both respiration and combustion than atmospherical
air." He had prepared a pure gas which he later named oxygen
or "acid former" thinking it to be a constituent of all acids.

Lavoisier came forward with an explanation of burning
which completely rejected the old notion of phlogiston. That
air was necessary for combustion and breathing was known.
Leonardo da Vinci during the fifteenth century believed "fire
destroyed without intermission the air which supports it and
would produce a vacuum if other air did not come to supply
it." Paracelsus back in 1535 wrote that "man dies like a fire
when deprived of air." Robert Boyle, too, was "prone to
suspect that there may be dispersed through the rest of the
atmosphere some odd substance on whose account the air is

72 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

so necessary to the subsistence of flame." But what function did
this air play? Jean Rey had, years before, curiously explained
that the increase in weight of a burning object came from
the air "which has been condensed and rendered adhesive by
the heat, which air mixes with the calces not otherwise than
water makes sand heavy by moistening and adhering to the
smallest of its grains." But no sensible scientist could accept
such an explanation.

Lavoisier described this experiment to the French Academy
a few months later, mentioning not a word of the work of
Priestley. In a letter to his friend, Dr. Henry, written on the
last day of that memorable year, the English minister felt that
Lavoisier "ought to have acknowledged that my giving him
an account of the air I had got from mercurus calcinatus led
him to try what air it yielded, which he did presently after
I left." It is difficult to explain this omission, for Lavoisier later
acknowledged his indebtedness to Priestley for his work on
the composition of nitric acid.

Lavoisier was the first to interpret the facts clearly. Burning,
he said, was the union of the burning substance with oxygen,
the name he gave to the dephlogisticated air discovered by
Priestley. The product formed during burning weighed more
than the original substance, by a weight equal to the weight of
the air which combined with the burning body. Simple enough.
No mysterious phlogiston, not even caloric and the testimony
of the most sensitive balances in Europe to support his
reasoning.

Everything was accounted for by his three delicate balances.
His most sensitive one, for weighing about a fifth of an ounce,
was affected by the five-hundredth part of a grain. To Lavoisier,
the balance was indispensable. It allowed nothing to escape
his attention. "One may take it for granted that in every re-
action there is an equal quantity of matter before and after
the operation. Thus, since wort of grapes gives carbonic gas
and alcohol, I can say wort of grapes equals carbonic acid and
alcohol." All chemical changes obeyed the law of indestruc-
tibility of matter. Likewise, in this chemical change of burning,
nothing was gained or lost. Even the vaporous air was weighed
and made to give consistent results. There was no intangible
ghost mixed up in his explanation. Here was a new, unorthodox
idea an exposition that ushered in a revolution in chemical
thought

The world did not accept Lavoisier's explanation at once.
But he kept on working. Emperor Francis I had heated three

LAVOISIER 73

thousand dollars' worth of pure diamonds for twenty-four
hours The diamonds disappeared. They had volatilized, or
changed to vapor, he thought. Lavoisier saw the error. He
heated a diamond away from air and it lost no weight. But
when he subjected it, inside a jar of oxygen, to the heat of
the sun's rays, it disappeared and changed into carbon dioxide.
Carbon had burned or oxidized into carbon dioxide gas. In
the meantime, Cavendish had proved the composition of water.
Lavoisier brilliantly repeated the work of this Englishman and
introduced an ingenious experiment to verify the composition
of water from the standpoint of his new theory of combustion.
These experiments were conclusive. French scientists began to
rally around him Fourcroy, De Morveau, Berthollet, and
others.

Outside France, opposition was still strong, especially in
England where William Ford Stevenson, in an expose" of the
"deception" of Lavoisier, declared: "This arch-magician so
far imposed upon our credulity as to persuade us that water,
the most powerful natural antiphlogistic we possess is a com-
pound of two gases, one of which surpasses all other substances
in its inflammability." Cavendish, discoverer of the composi-
tion of water, never accepted the new explanation. As late as
1803 Priestley wrote from Pennsylvania, "I should have greater
pride in acknowledging myself convinced if I saw reasons to
be, than in victory, and shall surrender my arms with pleasure.
I trust that your political revolution will be more stable than
this chemical one."

Yet Lavoisier's contribution triumphed. In Edinburgh, Black
accepted his explanation and passed it on to his students.
Italy and Holland fell into line at about the same time. From
Sweden, Bergman wrote to Lavoisier offering him his support.
The Berlin Academy of Sciences, urged by Martin Klaproth,
ratified Lavoisier's views in 1792. American scientists rallied
to him almost to a man. Even Russia endorsed the new system,
for it boasted of a forerunner of Lavoisier in the person of
Michael Vasilievic Lomonossov, vodka-loving poet and scientist
who a generation back had "conducted experiments in air-tight
vessels to ascertain whether the weight of a metal increased on
account of the heat/' and "showed that without the admission
of external air the weight of the metal remained the same/'

Then Lavoisier delivered a master stroke. He realized the
importance of language to a science. In 1789, while the Bastille
was being stormed, he published his Traite EUmentaire de
Chimie, which helped destroy another citadel of error. This

74 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

book was written in the new language of chemistry. For the
first time a text book spoke the language of the people.
Lavoisier took chemistry away from the mystics and the
obscurantists, and gave its knowledge to every man who would
learn. Too long had this science been burdened and obscured
by cryptic words and pompous phrases. Uncouth and barbar-
ous terms were to be banished forever Secret "terra foliata
tartari of Muller" became potash The new nomenclature
coupled with a scientific explanation of the process of com-
bustion gave chemistry a new birth.

The new terminology had not sprung up overnight As early
as 1782, four men began to meet regularly in "the little
Arsenal," the chemical laboratory of Lavoisier on Rue Neuve-
des-Bons Enfants, in Pans There were Guy ton de Morveau,
a lawyer who had come to Paris to suggest the simplified
nomenclature to Lavoisier; Berthollet, personal instructor of
chemistry to Napoleon, and Antome Francois Fourcroy, drama-
tist and relentless orator of the Reign of Terror, all seated
around Lavoisier, A herculean task was before them. What
a jumble of names, what a mess of alchemical debris had to
be sorted out and organized! Lavoisier spoke calmly to his
collaborators' "We must clean house thoroughly, for they have
made use of an enigmatical language peculiar to themselves,
which in general presents one meaning for the adepts and an-
other meaning for the vulgar, and at the same time contains
nothing that is rationally intelligible either for the one or for
the other " "But," ventured the mild Bertfrollet, "there might
be objections to a radical change " Some had raised the cry
of ancestor worship. "The establishment of a new nomenclature
in any science ought to be considered as high treason against
our ancestors, as it is nothing else than an attempt to render
their writings unintelligible, to annihilate their discoveries and
to claim the whole as their own property " This accusation had
come later from Thomas Thomson, who reproached the French
scientists for their presumption in daring to change the
language spoken and written by their masters. Others resented
the effort to interfere with the "genius of the language " But
Lavoisier answered, "Those who reproach us on this ground
have forgotten that Bergman and Macquer urged us to make
the reformation " De Morveau upheld his leader, "In a letter
which the learned Professor of Upsala, M. Bergman, wrote a
short time before he died he bids us spare no improper names;
those who are learned will always be learned, and those who
are ignorant will learn sooner/'

LAVOISIER 75

The four kept working, and in May, 1787, a treatise on the
new nomenclature of chemistry was proposed before the French
Academy. In Ireland that odd chemist, Kirwan, lying on his
belly on a hot summer's day before a blazing fire, and eating
ham and milk, received the new language of chemistry with
disdain. "So Lavoisier has substituted the word 'oxide' for the
calx of a metal/* he sneered. "I tell you it is preposterous.
In pronouncing this word it cannot be distinguished from
the 'hide of an ox/ How impossible! Why not use Oxat?" He
refused to agree to the new changes, "merely to gratify the
indolence of beginners/' But Lavoisier's views prevailed. Pro-
fessor Thomas Hope, at the University of Edinburgh, soon
after his arrival from Paris, was the first teacher to adopt the
new nomenclature in his public lectures. Dr. Lyman Spaldmg,
at Hanover, New Hampshire, published some chemical tracts
in the new system, using the name "septon" for nitrogen and
"septic acid" for nitric acid, on the principle that nitrogen was
the basis of putrefaction.

During his lifetime, Lavoisier's name was known throughout
France for his varied activities. He rivaled Franklin in his
versatility. In 1778 he was named by King Louis XVI mem-
ber of a committee to investigate the strange claims of a
physician who had come to Paris from Vienna. This Dr.
Fnedrich Mesmer created a great deal of excitement by prac-
ticing what he called "animal magnetism/' The King and
Queen suspected a plot. Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin, who
was also on the committee, watched the new miracle man, at
a seance, making passes over a patient and finally putting him
into a trance. Mesmer then suggested to the sleeper a cure for
his ailment, and, by some occult magnetic influence which
passed from the doctor to the sick one, the patient was cured.
Both Lavoisier and the American Ambassador vigorously de-
nied that animal magnetism had anything to do with the trance
whose reality, nevertheless, they admitted. And as the actuality
of his cures remained unsettled Mesmer continued to attract
disciples, among the most ardent of whom was young Lafayette.

At thirty-two, as comptroller of munitions, Lavoisier abol-
ished the right of the State to search for saltpetre in the cellars
of private houses, and by improving methods of manufacture,
increased France's supply of this chemical. Later he was ap-
pointed to investigate new developments in the manufacture
of ammunition. On October 27, 1788, accompanied by his wife,
he went to the town of Essonnes to report on some experiments.
When within a few hundred feet of the factory, they heard a

76 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

terrific explosion. Rushing to the rums Lavoisier found several
mutilated bodies. He had missed death by moments. The ex-
periments, nevertheless, were continued

Although condemned as a "damned aristocrat," Lavoisier
was by no means blind to the poverty and suffering of the
lower classes. In spite of his being a staunch royalist, he urged
reforms simply on humanitarian principles He believed that
in these reforms lay France's political salvation. Investigating
conditions among the French farmers, he reported to the
comptroller-general that "the unfortunate farmer groaned in
his thatched cottage for lack of both representation and de-
fenders " He realized they were being neglected, and tried to
improve their economic status. At Frdchme, Lavoisier estab-
lished a model farm, and taught improved methods of soil
cultivation and other aspects of scientific farming. During a
famine in 1788, he advanced his own money to buy barley
for the towns of Blois and Romorantm To avoid a recurrence
of such suffering, he proposed a system of government life
insurance for the poor. Blois remembered this act of kindness,
and in December of that year sent him as its representative
to the States General. Lavoisier, the humanitarian, also made
a tour of inspection of the various prisons m Pans, and ex-
pressed his utter disgust at France's method of treating her
criminals. The dungeons were foul, filthy, and damp-he
recommended an immediate fumigation of all these pest-holes
with hydrogen chloride gas, and the introduction of sanitation,

Today the undying fame of Lavoisier rests not upon these
fleeting social palliatives but upon the secure foundation of
his explanation of burning, and the simplified chemical
nomenclature we have inherited from him. Armed with these
new weapons, men were equipped to storm other bulwarks of
chemical obstruction.

VI

DALTON
A QUAKER BUILDS THE SMALLEST OF WORLDS

IN MAY, 1834, there came to London from the city of Man-
chester, a tall, gaunt, awkward man of sixty-six years. He
was dressed in Quaker costume; knee breeches, gray stockings,
buckled shoes, white neckcloth, gold-topped walking stick. His
friends had raised a subscription of two thousand pounds for
a portrait statue of this world-famous natural philosopher. He
had come to sit to Sir Francis Chantrey, the court sculptor,
who was to mold his head in clay, and then model a life-sized
statue to be placed in the hall of the Manchester Royal Insti-
tution. The clay model of the head of the venerable seer was
soon completed. As Chantrey sat chatting with him, he care-
fully scrutinized his head, which looked so much like the head
of Newton. He noticed that the ears of the philosopher were
not both alike, while the model showed the two ears to be
the same. In a moment the sculptor leaped to his feet, cut
off the left ear of the bust, and proceeded to fashion another
one. The old schoolmaster-scientist was amused. How absurdly
careful was this Chantreyl

Honors came pouring in on this scientist. The French Acad-
emy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member. He was
made a Fellow of the Royal Society of England, and President
of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. And
now his friends wished to present him to the King, who, years
before, had given a gold medal to be awarded to him for his
great scientific contributions. Henry Brougham, the Lord
Chancellor, offered to present him to His Majesty, But this
could not be arranged without breaking the rules of the Court.
John Dalton was a Quaker who still respected the tenets of
his religion, even though forty years before, loving certain
favorite airs, he had dared ask permission of the Society of
Friends to use music under certain limitations. A Quaker could
not wear court dress because this included the carrying of a
sword. A way was soon found out of the difficulty. The Uni-
versity of Oxford had recently conferred upon him an honor-
ary degree. He could be properly introduced to the King in
the scarlet robes of a Doctor of Laws. The old philosopher
agreed. The part was carefully rehearsed. "But what of these

77

78 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

robes?" someone pointed out "They are scarlet, and no Quaker
would wear such a colored garment/' "You call it scarlet,"
replied Dalton, who was color-blind. "To me its color is that
of nature the color of green leaves."

The stage was all set for the momentous event. Dalton ap-
proached King William IV and kissed his hands They stood
chatting for a while. "Who the devil is that fellow whom the
King keeps talking to so long?" someone asked. He had never
seen John Dalton and had probably never heard of him, for
Dalton led a very uneventful, contemplative life. From this
studious existence, however, came one of the greatest contribu-
tions to chemistry a contribution upon which much of the
later chemistry rested.

Dalton, like Priestley, was the son of a poor English weaver.
When only twelve years old he had already requested permis-
sion from the authorities of his native village of Eaglesfield to
open a school. He had by this time studied mensuration, survey-
ing, and navigation, and his scientific knowledge convinced the
authorities of his competence. They remembered how, at the
age of ten, he had astonished the farmers of his village by
solving a problem they had discussed for hours in a hay field.
He had proved to them that sixty square yards and sixty yards
square were not the same. He was always solving mathematical
problems for which he won many prizes. Like most boys, he
would have preferred to do other things than teach, but his
poor Quaker parents had five other children, and John had
to help.

At first he opened his school in an old barn, and later held
his classes in the meeting house of the Friends. Some of his
pupils were boys and girls much older than he. He did not
mind teaching them so long as he could find time after school
to make weather observations. He had become deeply engrossed
in the study of the atmosphere. What a hobby that was! He
would rather mark down all sorts of weather observations in
one of his innumerable notebooks, than hunt or fish or go
swimming. He worked for hours at a time constructing crude
thermometers, barometers, and even hygrometers. Between his
duties as a schoolmaster and his work as farmer on his father's
small patch of land, the boy found time to play with the
atmosphere and dream of it.

As this lad grew older, he studied Latin, Greek, mathe-
matics, and more natural philosophy. But his hobby of meteor-
ology fascinated him most of all. When he was fifteen he left
Eaglesfield for the village of Kendal to teach in the school

DALTON 79

which his brother Jonathan conducted. As he passed through
Cockermouth, he saw an umbrella He had never seen one
before, except in prints of fine ladies and gentlemen. He bought
the umbrella, feeling, as he said years later, that he was now
to become a gentleman. At the Kendal school his authority was
soon questioned One of the older boys challenged the young
schoolmaster to a fight in the graveyard Dalton knew he was
no match for this bully He locked the ruffian in his room, and
his classmates outside broke his windows in revenge.

In 1793, at the recommendation of his friend John Gough,
a distinguished, blind, natural philosopher of Kendal, Dalton
was invited to become tutor in mathematics and natural phi-
losophy at Manchester College at an annual salary of eighty
pounds. But he needed more time and freedom for his all-
absorbing pursuit of aerology At the close of the century, he
resigned from the college to become a private tutor, earning
his livelihood at two shillings a lesson. He might have gone on
a lecture tour, but he knew he was a failure as a public lec-
turer. He had been convinced of this when at Kendal he had
given twelve lectures on natural philosophy to the general pub-
lic, charging one guinea for the entire course. These discourses
included such fascinating subjects as astronomy and optics.
But his deep, gruff, indistinct voice, his slow association of
thoughts, his dry humor and unattractive appearance, could
not draw a large audience, although he had announced that
"subscribers to the whole course would have the liberty of
requesting further information, also of proposing doubts or
objections" Even. the lure of a public forum in science had
not made his lectures popular.

Dalton could devote more time now to his study of the atmos-
phere He made scores of weather observations every day. Oc-
casionally he was called away to other cities to tutor. His life
became filled with such a passion for collecting data on the
air that when he went to Edinburgh, London, Glasgow, or
Birmingham, he never failed to spend most of his time making
observations and recording results. When conditions permitted
him to take a brief vacation, he travelled to the Lake District,
where he added to his almost numberless records. He tramped
through northern England, explored valleys, forded streams,
climbed mountains, went sailing over the lakes, not for health
or pleasure, but with a greater incentive he was studying the
atmosphere. He never forgot to carry his scientific apparatus.
For forty-six consecutive years he kept records of the daily
weather and atmospheric conditions, and there were few entries

80 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

missing in this colossal record of more than two hundred thou-
sand observations. Goethe, at sixty-eight, hearing of Dalton's
passion for weather observations, took to this new science of
meteorology, and made numerous cloud calendars.

Dalton never married. He said he had no time for such a
luxury. Yet he enjoyed the society of beautiful and talented
women. In Lancaster there was a family of Friends he never
failed to visit when in the neighborhood In writing to his
brother Jonathan, who likewise remained a bachelor, John was
not ashamed to admit his infatuation. "Next to Hannah," he
declared, "her sister Ann takes it in my eyes before all others.
She is a perfect model of personal beauty." He is even said
to have composed verse to this lady. When he visited London
in 1809 to attend a meeting of the Royal Society, he reported
to his brother, "I see the belles of New Bond Street every day.
I am more taken up with their faces than their dress. Some of
the ladies seem to have their dresses so tight around them as a
drum, others throw them round like a blanket I do not know
how it happens, but I fancy pretty women look well anyhow."

His only relaxation, besides his scientific excursions, was
bowling. Every Thursday afternoon he went outside the town
to the "Dog and Partridge" to indulge m a merry game of
bowls. A few pence for each game were paid for the use of the
green, and Dalton meticulously noted his gams and losses in
his book. He could never stop entering figures in notebooks.

As Dalton's observations on the atmosphere filled notebook
after notebook, he began to wonder about a problem which no
one had as yet made clear. He knew that the atmosphere was
composed of four gases oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and
water vapor. Priestley, Rutherford, Cavendish, and Lavoisier
had proved that point. But how were these gases held together?
Were they chemically united or were they merely mixed to-
gether, just as one mixes sand and clay? There were two
theories. Berthollet believed the air to be an unstable chemical
compound; others considered it a physical mixture of gases.

Dalton's own observations led him to accept the idea that
air was a mechanical mixture of gases. Yet the composition of
the atmosphere was constant. His records proved that without
question. He had analyzed the atmosphere taken from hun-
dreds of different places in Englandfrom the tops of moun-
tains, over lakes, in valleys, in sparsely settled regions and in
crowded cities. Yet the composition was the same. Gay-Lussac
in France had ascended in a balloon filled with hydrogen to
an altitude of 21,375 feet over Paris, and had collected

D ALTON 81

samples of air at this height. And this air differed only very
slightly from the air taken in the streets of the city Why did
not the heavier carbon dioxide gas settle to the bottom of the
sea of air, covered in turn by the lighter oxygen, nitrogen,
and -water vapor? Had he not tried to mix oil and water and
had not the lighter oil collected at the surface of the heavier
water? Perhaps the currents of air and the constantly moving
winds mixed the gases of the atmosphere and kept their
composition uniform.

Dalton could not understand it. Had he gone to the labora-
tory, where the masters of chemistry had sought out the answers
to other baffling questions? He had tried, but his flasks had not
helped Dalton knew himself he was not a careful experi-
menter. This had to be solved in the workshop of his brain.

Dalton had read Lavoisier's Traite Elementaire de Chimie.
The French chemist had suggested that the particles of a gas
were separated from each other by an atmosphere of heat or
caloric "We may form an idea of this," he had written, "by
supposing a vessel filled with small spherical leaden bullets
among which a quantity of fine sand is poured. The balls are
to the sand as the particles of bodies are with respect to the
caloric; with this difference only, that the balls are supposed
to touch each other, whereas the particles of bodies are not in
contact, being retained at a small distance from each other
by the caloric"

Perhaps diagrams would help. Dalton drew pictures he was
enough of the pedagogue to know how much a simple sketch
had helped his students understand a hazy point Little stars
represented the water vapor in the air. A small diamond design
would stand for the oxygen of the atmosphere. Tiny dots were
the nitrogen, and small black triangles designated the carbon
dioxide of the atmosphere. Now he mixed these signs together,
and drew a picture to represent how these gases were found
present in the atmosphere. His pictorial mind began to see
the particles of the different gases diffusing through each other,
and thoroughly mixing, thus keeping the composition of the
atmosphere uniform.

While he was interpreting this physical phenomenon of the
diffusion of gases, a little word began to loom larger and
clearer in his mind. He had come across that word in his
readings. Kanada, the Hindu "atom eater/' had centuries ago
conceived matter to be discontinuous and made up of small
eternal particles in perpetual motion. Leucippus, a famous
scholar and teacher of Greece, had also speculated on the

82 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

nature of matter twenty-four centuries before Dalton, and had
concluded that everything consisted of tiny particles of various
kinds, separated by space through which they travelled. Then
Democntus, the "laughing philosopher" who in 500 B c de-
clared, "We know nothing, not even if there is anything to
know/' developed his teacher's idea, and taught that matter
was composed of empty space and an infinite number of in-
visible atoms, i.e small particles "Why is water a liquid?"
asked Democritus. "Because its atoms are smooth and round
and can glide over each other" Not so with iron, however,
whose atoms are very rough and hard. He constructed an
entire system of atomism. Color was due to the figures of the
atoms, sourness was produced by angular atoms, the body
of man was composed of large sluggish atoms, the mmd of
small mobile atoms while the soul consisted of fine, smooth,
round particles like those of fire. Even sight and hearing were
explained in terms of atoms Lucretius in his poem De Rerum
Natura had been able to convey the same idea to the
Romans.

The Manchester schoolmaster had also read of Newton's
ideas regarding matter "It seems probable to me/' wrote New-
ton, "that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy,
hard, impenetrable, movable particles. ... so very hard as
never to wear or break to pieces; no ordinary power being
able to divide what God had himself made One, in the first
creation." A beautiful idea, thought Dalton, but was this
really true? He pondered over it constantly. Suddenly, after
deep thought, the whole atomic theory was revealed to him.
He did not wait for experimental verification. Like Galileo, he
did not feel that experimental proof was always absolutely
essential. Like Farraday, he possessed, to an extreme degree, a
sense of physical reality. Dalton, cat on his knee, began to
draw pictures of his atoms. Each atom was represented by a
sphere, and since the atoms of the different elements were
unlike, he varied the appearances of these globes, as fol-
lows:

Hydrogen, Gold ' Carbon,

Oxygen, \SJ Silver, QO Phosphorus,

Nitrogen, 3 Mercury, ff Sulfur*

X*r vjx

DALTON 83

Dalton, like the ancient philosophers, could not actually see
the particles which he pictured Yet his atoms were only re-
motely akin to the atoms of antiquity. To Dalton, atoms were
definite, concrete particles of matter, even though the most deli-
cate instrument could not render them visible to the human eye.
A hundred and forty years after Dalton formulated his Atomic
Theory, the electron microscope was developed. This instru-
ment revealed particles as small as one four-hundredth of a
millionth of an inch. Yet the atom was still hidden, even to this
most sensitive eye. For even the largest atom is still a hundred
times smaller than the tiniest particle that the ultramicro-
scope can reveal. The tiniest corpuscle that the Dutch lens
grinder Leeuwenhoek beheld m a drop of saliva under his
crude microscope was thousands of times larger than the big-
gest of Dalton's atoms. In every single drop of sea water there
are fifty billion atoms of gold. One would have to distill two
thousand tons of such water to get one single gram of gold.

And yet Dalton spoke and worked with atoms as if they were
tangible. These atoms, he claimed, were indivisible -in the
most violent chemical change, the atoms remained intact.
Chemical change he pictured as a union of one or more atoms
of one element with atoms of other elements Thus, when mer-
cury was heated in the air, one atom of mercury united with
one atom of oxygen to form a compound particle of oxide of
mercury. Billions of these particles finally appeared to the eye
as a heap of red powder of mercury. He had some spheres con-
structed by a Mr. Ewart which were unfortunately lost to
posterity. These little spheres, one inch in diameter, he used
for thirty years in teaching the Atomic Theory. He brought one
ball representing an atom of mercury, in contact with another
ball representing an atom of oxygen, and showed the formation
of a particle of mercury oxide, thus:

o

1 atom of silvery, 1 atom of colorless, 1 compound particle
liquid mercury gaseous oxygen * of red powder of

mercury oxide

Dalton asked himself another question. "Are all atoms alike
in size and weight?" Here he made a distinct contribution
which again stamped his theory as different from those of the
ancients. Democritus had declared the atoms to be infinite in
number and infinitely various in form. Dalton postulated that

84 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

the atoms of the same element were all alike, but the atoms of
different elements differed in both shape and weight. The
weights of the atoms of each element, however, were always
fixed, and never varied. Here was a bold statement. He had
neither seen nor weighed an atom. Yet Dalton's Theory stood
the test of more than a century of investigation, and today
scientific evidence bears testimony to the truth of his concep-
tions.

In the meantime, a controversy was raging between two dis-
tinguished French chemists. Berthollet, the mild-mannered,
believed that while chemical compounds showed almost con-
stant composition, yet the proportions in which the elements
had chemically combined were not absolutely rigid. Water, for
example, had been proved to be a compound of oxygen and
hydrogen. Berthollet insisted that, within moderate limits, the
composition of this compound might vary. Usually 11.1% of
hydrogen unite with 88.9% of oxygen to form water, but 11%
of hydrogen might unite with 89% of oxygen, at another time,
to form the same water. Strange, we might say, that so eminent
a chemist as Berthollet could have championed such an absurd-
ity But we must remember it is still the eighteenth century,
and chemistry is still in its swaddling clothes. Even at the close
of the nineteenth century Ostwald, a Nobel Prize winner in
chemistry, held similar views and supported Franz Wald, a
Bohemian chemist and natural philosopher, who maintained
that the composition of chemical compounds varied, depending
upon their manner of production. Berthollet was scientist
enough to experiment before making positive assertions. Hie
made hundreds of analyses. His conclusions, as well as those
of other experimenters, seemed to add force to his claims.

The contending scientist, Joseph Louis Proust, was at that
time teaching chemistry in Spain. He had made numerous ex-
periments to determine the proportions in which various com-
pounds were formed, and had arrived at the conclusion that
Berthollet was entirely mistaken. Proust repeated the experi-
ments of his countryman. He used the purest of chemicals and
the most accurate apparatus. He took every precaution to avoid
error, and found mistakes in Berthollet's determination. Be-
sides, Berthollet had used substances like glass, alloys, and
mixtures of various liquids, all of which were not true com-
pounds. For eight years Proust tried to persuade the scientific
world, and especially the followers of Berthollet, that when
elements combined to form chemical compounds, the elements
united in definite proportions by weight a theory advanced

DALTON 85

as early as the fourteenth century by Jildaki, an alchemist
of Cairo.

Never did this controversy become anything more than a
courteous and brilliant, truth-seeking discussion When Ber-
thollet, discoverer of the use of chlorine as a bleaching agent, a
discovery which he would not patent but gave to the world
free, when this man Berthollet saw the error of his conclusions,
he graciously withdrew his arguments and accepted the con-
clusions of Proust And what a marvelous order had Proust
found in nature! "The stones and soil beneath our feet, and
the ponderable mountains, are not mere confused masses of
matter; they are pervaded through their innermost constitu-
tion by the harmony of numbers " Kepler, Galileo and Newton
regarded nature as mathematical. Here was added testimony.
The Composition of every true compound never varies. This
Law of Definite Composition remains a fundamental principle
of the science of chemistry.

This law which, for the first time, made chemistry a mathe-
matical science, was discovered while Dalton sat sketching fig-
ures of the atoms Dalton's little spherical atoms could very
neatly confirm this law For, if the weight of the atom of every
single element is constant, and this he had postulated in his
theory, then the composition of all compounds must be definite,
since all chemical union meant the combination of these mi-
nute unchangeable atoms. Here is carbon monoxide, composed

of one atom of carbon and one atom of oxygen ^^8T J
And here is nitric oxide made up of one atom of nitrogen
and one atom of oxygen* fj jf j And TOT J repre-
sented water, believed to contain one atom of hydrogen and
one atom of oxygen The composition of every one of these
compounds must be constant, for if the eye could see beyond
its limited range, it would witness single elementary atoms join
hands, atom for atom, in definite combinations. How perfect,
as Dalton showed, was the phenomenon of chemical union!
The ancients had speculated about the nature of matter and
had written of atoms. But their atoms were not the building
stones of the Manchester schoolmaster. Dalton's little figures
were realities too small to be seen. He has left in his writings
and charts evidences that they were, to him, concrete particles.
He was not trammelled with mathematical acumen, experi-

86 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

mental dexterity, or the wisdom of scholarly institutions He
discarded the accepted notions of scientists and contemplated
nature as unbiased as a child. He would never have arrived at
his immortal conception had he depended upon the results of
his laboratory experiments they were far too inaccurate. The
discovery of his great generalization was based upon the imagin-
ative boldness of a mature thinker, and the simplicity of a boy
playing with a hobby.

Dalton had theorized that the atoms of the different elements
had different weights. If he could only find out what these
weights really were! He could not think of determining the
weights of the individual atoms. They were so small and light
that science was to wait a century and more before those actual
weights could be determined. Decades had to pass before suffi-
cient facts could be collected and more delicate instruments
perfected, to solve this problem. But Dalton realized that chem-
ists had to know at least the relative weights of the atoms, lest
the progress of the science be impeded. Relative atoms weights
these he could determine.

In "addition to Cavendish and Lavoisier a host of other
workers had accumulated a mass of mathematical results.
Wenzel had studied the effects of an acid like vinegar on a base
like ammonia water. Later, Jeremias Richter found that they,
like other acids and bases, combined in constant proportions
and in 1794 he published his Foundations of Stoichiometry or
Art of Measuring the Chemical Elements. It was from this hazy
book that G. E. Fischer collected the data which enabled him
to arrange a clear, simple table. This table was the key to
Dalton's problem.

He must start with the lightest substance known hydrogen
gas. Its atomic weight he took as standard and called it one.
Hence, the relative atomic weights of all the other elements
must be greater than one. He knew that hydrogen and oxygen
united in the ratio of one to seven by weight. Dalton believed
that one atom of hydrogen united with one atom of oxygen to
form water. Therefore, the relative weight of the atom of oxy-
gen was seven. In this way he prepared the first table of rela-
tive atomic weights a table of fourteen elements, which,
though inaccurate, remains as a monument to this school-
master's foresight. The Table of the Atomic Weights of the
Elements relative atomic weights, to be sure is today the
cornerstone of chemical calculations.

While working on the relative weights of the atoms, Dalton
noticed a curious mathematical simplicity. Carbon united with

DALTON 87

oxygen in the ratio of 3 to 4 to form carbon monoxide, that
poisonous gas which is sometimes used as a fuel m the gas
range Carbon also united with oxygen to form gaseous carbon
dioxide in the ratio of 3 to 8. Why not 3 to 6, or 3 to 7? Why
that number 8 which was a perfect multiple of 4? If that were
the only example, Dalton would not have bothered his head.
But he found a more striking instance among the oxides of
nitrogen, which Cavendish and Davy had investigated Here
the same^ amount of nitrogen united with one, two and four
parts of oxygen to form three distinct compounds. Why these
numbers which again were multiples of each other? He had
studied two other gases, ethylene and methane, and found
that methane contained exactly twice as much hydrogen as
ethylene. Why this mathematical simplicity?

Again Dalton made models with his atoms, and found the
answer.

Carbon monoxide (CO) was / / while carbon

dioxide (CCM, was ^BC~)C3 * Nitrous oxide (N 2 O)

was CDCDO ' and CDO wa$ nitric oxide (NO) '

while nitrogen peroxide (NOz) could be represented as

(DOO

He had discovered another fundamental law in chemistry!
Berzelius later stated this law as follows: In a senes of com-
pounds made up of the same elements., a simple ratio exists
between the weights of one and the fixed weight of the other
element.

He wrote to Dulton to tell him that "this Law of Multiple
Proportions was a mystery without the atomic hypothesis."
Again Dalton's little spheres had clarified a basic truth.

On October 21, 1803, Dalton made before the Manchester
Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was secretary,
his first public announcement of the relative weights of atoms.
It excited the attention of some natural philosophers He was
invited by the Royal Institution of London to lecture to a large
and distinguished audience.

Dalton's atoms had started a heated discussion. His papers

88 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

were translated into German. This infused a new spirit in him,
and he continued to expand and clarify his theory. Then, in
the spring of 1807, he made a lecture tour to Scotland to ex-
pound his theory of the atoms Among his audience at Glasgow
was Thomas Thomson, who was at work on a new textbook of
chemistry. This Scotch chemist was impressed with Dalton's
new conception of chemical union He had visited him in
Manchester three years before At that time, as a result of a
brief meeting, a few minutes' conversation and a short written
memorandum, Thomson had decided to incorporate the
Atomic Theory of Dalton in his textbook. The following year
Dalton himself expounded his hypothesis in his own New
System of Chemical Philosophy.

Before long the Atomic Theory, shuttlecock of metaphy-
sicians for two thousand years, was finally brought to rest as
an accepted and working hypothesis, eventually to be com-
pletely and experimentally proven. But not without a struggle.
Those little circles of the Quaker schoolmaster were an abomi-
nation to many who would accept only what they could actually
see and touch in the laboratory. They would have none of this
fantastic dream.

Dr. William J Mayo, celebrated American surgeon and co-
founder of the Mayo Clinic, recalled that "my father was a
student of Dalton and when my brother and I were small
boys he told us much about this tall, gaunt, awkward scholar,
and how little it was realized in his day that the atomic theory
was more than the vagary of a scientist." It might be good
enough for schoolboys who had to be amused in studying
chemistry, or for natural philosophers who were never inside
the chemist's sanctuary where the delicate balance and the
glowing crucible told the whole truth. It was true that famous
philosophers like Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Descartes had pro-
pounded similar ideas. But who listened to speculative
philosophy? Lactantius, fifteen hundred years ago, had laughed
at the idea of atoms. "Who has seen, felt, or even heard of
these atoms?" he jeered. And now once more they sneered
at the idea of atoms. Dalton was suffering from hallucinations,
declared some. Instead of snakes he had visioned little spherical
balls of atoms. How absurd! Was science again to be fettered
by such scholasticism? What was this but confounded pictorial
jugglery? Could any serious-minded chemist accept a theory
just as baseless as the four elements of Aristotle that had
chained men's minds for twenty centuries?

But here was a chemist, a natural scientist working in a

DALTON 89

chemical laboratory, who was bold enough to apply the idea
of real atoms to chemical reactions. True, Thomson and Wil-
liam Hyde Wollaston, who confirmed the Law of Multiple
Proportions experimentally, were ready to accept it But Davy,
England's most celebrated chemist, was bitterly hostile. He
had been present at that meeting of the Royal Society when
Dalton had first lectured about his atoms and had left the
hall sceptical. But Dalton, an inveterate smoker, consoled him-
self. He could not see in young Davy any signs of a great
natural philosopher, for, as he expressed himself, "Davy does
not smoke."

Thomson had tried to convince Davy of the value of the
theory. But Davy was adamant in his opposition, and cari-
catured Dalton's theory so skilfully that many were astonished
"how any man of sense or science would be taken up with such
a tissue of absurdities " Charles William Eliot, President
of Harvard University, who began his career in the field of
education as a teacher of chemistry, cautioned his students as
late as 1868 that "the existence of atoms is itself an hypothesis
and not a probable one. All dogmatic assertion upon it is to be
regarded with distrust." Berthollet, too, was so sceptical of the
atomic theory that as late as 1890 he still wrote the formula
for water as if it were hydrogen peroxide to him atoms were
but fabrications of the mind. Wilhelm Ostwald, who did not
hesitate to champion the unorthodox theories of many young
chemical dreamers, wanted as late as 1910 to do away com-
pletely with the atomic theory.

Some accepted the atomic theory with reservations. Fifty
years after it was formulated, one eminent English scientist
declared it "at best but a graceful, ingenious, and in its place,
useful hypothesis." But the barriers against its acceptance were
finally broken down. Even Davy was eventually converted to
the abominable little atoms, and in 1818, when the Govern-
ment was making ready to send Sir John Ross on a scientific
exploration to the Polar regions, Davy wrote to Dalton, "It
has occurred to me that if you find your engagements and your
health such as to enable you to undertake the enterprise, no
one will be so well qualified as yourself." Dalton appreciated
this compliment, but had to refuse.

At about this time William Higgins, member of the Royal
Dublin Society and F R.S., wrote a pamphlet Observations and
Experiments on the Atomic Theory and Electrical Phenomena
in which he claimed that the atomic theory had been applied
by him long before Dalton, in various abstruse researches, and

90 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

that "its application by Mr. Dalton in a general and popular
way gained it the name of Dalton's theory/' Besides, he
declared himself to be "the first who attempted to ascertain the
relative weights of the ultimate particles of matter."

Here was another epic challenge in the chronicle of chemis-
try. Yet there was no element of attack in these statements
Higgins made no charge of plagiarism. He never even hinted
at any evidence of piracy. For more than a decade he had
modestly watched Dalton struggling to make the world accept
his atoms, refusing to inject himself into the controversy until
success had been assured for the Englishman.

Higgins was no trouble-maker. He was an eccentric Irishman
of keen mtellect-in fact, the first in Great Britain to see the
fallacy of phlogiston As early as 1789 when both he and Dal-
ton were only twenty-three he had published A Comparative
View of the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Doctrine. Herein he
came to the defence of Lavoisier's new system of chemistry
thereby daring estrangement from his irascible uncle Bryan
Higgins who conducted the Greek Street School in Soho where
Priestley often came for chemicals. The germ of the modern
atomic theory appeared in this pamphlet. While he did not
actually use the terminology of the atomic theory its method
of reasoning was undoubtedly there. "Water," he wrote, "is
composed of molecules formed by the union of a single particle
of oxygen to a single ultimate particle of hydrogen."

Davy and Wollaston appreciated his pioneer work especially
in his glimpsing of the Law of Multiple Proportions which he
saw exemplified in the oxides of sulfur and of nitrogen even
as Dalton years later discovered it in the oxides of carbon and
nitrogen. Others, too, realized his greatness. Even Sir John
Herschel in his Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects had
Herrnione ask: "Do tell me something about these atoms. It
seems to have something to do with the atomic theory of Dal-
ton." "Higgins, if you please," came Herschel's answer from
the lips of Hermogenes.

Yet such is the not too uncommon fate of history that Hig-
gins died in obsurity while Dalton rose to the heights of fame.
In 1822 he visited Paris and received a great ovation. The most
illustrious scientists of France paid homage to him. He met
Laplace, seventy-three years old, who discussed with him his
development of the nebular hypothesis of cosmogony. Vener-
able Berthollet walked arm in arm with him for the last time,
for before many more weeks had passed, France's grand old
man of science was dead. Cuvier, founder of the science of

DALTON 91

comparative anatomy, delighted him with his sparkling con-
versation. At the Arsenal, made famous by the work of
Lavoisier, Dal ton met Gay-Lussac, who told him of his balloon
ascents. Thdnard, who four years earlier had startled the scien-
tific world with his discovery of hydrogen peroxide, amused
the English schoolmaster with experiments on this strange
liquid, the second compound of hydrogen and oxygen. Dalton
never forgot this cordial reception by France's scientists.

Dalton's own country did not show the same reverence to
this seer of Manchester. Though past sixty, he was still com-
pelled to teach arithmetic to private students in a small room
of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society at 36
George Street. When, in 1833, his friends tried to get a pension
for him from the Government, they were told by the Lord
Chancellor that while he was "anxious to obtain some provi-
sion for him, it would be attended with great difficulty."
Dalton's intimate friend, William Henry, made a last plea. "It
would surely be unworthy of a great nation," he wrote, "to be
governed in awarding and encouraging genius by the narrow
principle of a strict barter o advantages. With respect to great
poets and great historians, no such parsimony has ever been
exercised. They have been rewarded, and justly for the con-
tributions they have cast into the treasure of our purely intel-
lectual wealth. The most rigid advocate of retrenchment cannot
object to the moderate provisions which shall exempt such a
man in his old age from the irksome drudgery of elementary
teaching. It is very desirable that the British government shall
be spared the deep reproach which otherwise assuredly awaits
it, o having treated with coolness and neglect one who has
contributed so much to raise his country high among intellec-
tual nations."

Lord Grey's government granted Dalton a yearly pension of a
hundred and fifty pounds, later increased to three hundred. Yet
he continued to teach and work in the field of science. In
1837, suffering from an attack of paralysis and unable to go
to Liverpool where the British Association was meeting, he
communicated a paper on the atmosphere his first love. He
had calculated that the assistance of plants in purifying the
atmosphere, by absorbing carbon dioxide in starch making,
was not necessary. He had figured that during the last five
thousand years, animals had added only one-thousandth of one
per cent of carbon dioxide to the air. When he was seventy-
six, the Association met in Manchester, his home city, and
Dalton was able to attend its meetings. He was still working

92 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

in his laboratory. "I succeed in doing chemical experiments,"
he told them, "taking three or four times the usual time, and
I am no longer quick in calculating."

Two years later he was still making weather observations.
He made entries in his notebook of the readings of his barom-
eter and thermometer for the morning of Friday, July 26, 1844.
The figures were written in a weak, trembling hand Over the
entry "little rain" was a huge blot he could not hold his pen
firmly. This was his last entry The next morning Dalton was
dead, having passed away "without a struggle or a groan, and
imperceptibly, as an infant sinks into sleep." Forty thousand
people came to witness his funeral procession.

Dumas, the French savant, called theories "the crutches of
science, to be thrown away at the proper time." Dalton lived
to see his theories still held tenaciously by the natural phi-
losophers of the world. For, "without it, chemistry would have
continued to consist of a mass of heterogeneous observations
and recipes for performing experiments, or for manufacturing
metals." Dalton's Atomic Theory remains today one of the
pillars of the edifice of chemistry a monument to the genius
of the modest Quaker of Manchester.

VII

BERZELIUS

A SWEDE TEARS UP A PICTURE BOOK

ONLY the skilled adept could make sense out of the maze
of strange pictures and symbols which filled the writings
of early chemistry. The alchemists had couched their ideas in
an obscure sign language. Perhaps it did not require omni-
science to understand that a group of dots arranged in a heap
represented sand. Maybe the connoiseur of wine knew that this

symbol p meant alcohol. But who could guess that
meant borax, and ^ stood for soap, while glass was desig-
nated by two spheres joined by a bar? Clay, to be sure, must be
>-/ , and this strange sigr fM meant sea salt. Could

mean anything but a day, and its inverted image a night? And
what of the many other strange markings which filled many a
manuscript of ancient alchemy, and even found their way into
current literature?

The foundations of chemistry were now more or less com-
pleted. Phlogiston had been slain, and Lavoisier's theory of
burning was safely established. De Morveau's new chemical
nomenclature had been accepted, and Dalton had promulgated
his atomic theory, which clearly explained two cornerstones
of the structure of chemistrythe Laws of Constant Composi-
tion and Multiple Proportions.

But the bog of astrological and occult signs had to be cleared
before an enduring edifice of chemistry could safely be raised.
The muddle of arbitrary signs had to be destroyed and a more
reasonable system substituted for it. The wild belief in alchemy
had been scotched, but the serpent still lived, for its symbols
still wriggled and twisted over the pages of chemical writings.
No amateur could venture alone through its labyrinthine
jungles. In one Italian manuscript of the early seventeenth
century by Antonio Nen, the metal mercury was represented
by no less than twenty symbols and thirty-five different namesl

93

94 CRUCIBLES' THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

In another book, lead was designated by fourteen symbols and
sixteen names Kunkel had rightly complained about this con-
fusion The old alchemists had tried to hide their pretence of
knowledge in the secrets o confused hieroglyphics.

Something had to be done if chemistry was to become in-
telligible to everyone who wished to study it with reasonable
diligence At about the time that Priestley was discovering
oxygen, Olaf Bergman of Upsala had attempted to solve the
difficulty But his figures were almost as barbarous Still in
awe of the ancient masters, he dared not forget them altogether.
He continued to use for the metals the ancient symbols that
had been handed down from Persia, India, and Egypt, through
Greece and Rome to Europe. The number of common metals
known to the ancients was seven This was also the number
of planets they had recognized and deified The Chaldeans, be-
lieving that the metals grew by the influence of the planets, had
assigned to each god and planet a metal The Persians repre-
sented the revolution of the heavenly bodies by seven stairs
leading up to seven gates the first of lead, the second of tin,
the third copper, the fourth iron, the fifth of mixed metal,
the sixth silver, and the last of gold.

To the Egyptians the circle was the symbol of divinity or
perfection, hence it logically represented the sun The circle
was taken also as the symbol of gold, the perfect metal The
moon, seen as a crescent suspended m the sky, gave this planet

and its metal silver the symbol of the crescent j) The scythe
of Saturn J/ , dullest of the gods, symbolized the character of
this heavenly body, as well as lead, dullest of the metals.
jj , the thunderbolt of Jupiter, was the symbol of lustrous
tin. The lance and shield of Mars, god of war, was repre-
sented by QT*^ which stood appropriately for iron. The
looking glass of Venus, pictured thus, CJ was also the sym-
bol of copper, for Venus had risen full formed from the ocean
foam on the shores of Cyprus, famous for its copper mines.
Mercury, the speedy messenger of the gods, was pictured with

the caduceus or wand O

BERZELIUS 95

Bergman clung to these old symbols and introduced a few
others such as J)Q platinum (called silvery gold), and
f* \^\ sulfuric acid.

An attempt was made to change the ancient sign language.
At the time when Lavoisier and his associates were reforming
the nomenclature of chemistry, the Academy of Sciences at
Paris selected Hassenfratz and Adet to improve the chemical
ciphers Their system, likewise, was too complex. They repre-
sented the metals as circles enclosing the Latin or Greek
initials of the elements. Burnable bodies such as hydrogen,
sulfur, carbon, and phosphorus they represented by semicircles
in four different positions. Three short straight lines in dif-
ferent positions represented caloric, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Compound substances whose compositions were still unknown
were designated by squares standing on one point. By placing
their symbols in different positions, pictures could be made
for more than three hundred thousand different compounds,
each consisting of three simple substances

The result was again confusion For not every student of
chemistry was a draftsman. A simpler system was soon devised
by a man whose work in the field of chemistry was so eminently
successful, that for year* -he was respected as a lawgiver, a
veritable autocrat of the chemical laboratory In 1796 we find
Berzelius at the University of Upsala in Sweden preparing for
his medical degree. He was accustomed to hardship For years
this orphan boy had worked on his stepfather's farm, living in
a room which, fortunately for him, was also the storehouse of
a crop of potatoes. His mean, thrifty stepfather made sure that
these potatoes would not freeze during the cold winter. So the
warmth that protected them kept the boy, John, alive.

Four dollars and a pair of woolen stockings were his meager
pay for his years of service. He had set out for the high school
at Linkopmg near where he was born, dreaming of what he
might become in ten years or so. Perhaps a clergyman. Had
not his father, his grandfather, yes, and even his great-grand-
father been clergymen, and why not he, John? But he was not
to enter the ministry. At school he became interested in nature
more especially in the collection of flowers, insects and birds.
He bought a gun and whenever the chance presented itself, he
would forget the rigid rules of the school and steal off to hunt
specimens of birds. His teacher had encouraged him in this love
of natural history, which almost ended in disaster. To keep

96 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

himself at school he managed, like other students at the gym-
nasium, to do some private teaching He was tutoring the two
sons of a widow, and in his zeal almost killed one of them
with his gun while they were out hunting birds Widow
Elgerus complained to the rector, who instantly forbade him
the use of the weapon But John hated authority as much as
he loved shooting For using the gun on further occasions, he
was almost expelled. Besides, he had cut some of his classes.
During his last term he had been absent from his Hebrew
classes a total of sixty-three hours! The rector did not forget,
for when young Berzehus came up for his certificate of gradua-
tion, he was warned that he was a young man of good abilities
and doubtful ambition and had cut sixty-three hours He
would have to mend his ways if anything creditable was to
become of him, for "he justified only doubtful hopes "

At the University he became interested in experimental
chemistry. He had picked up the cheapest textbook he could
buy Girtanner's Anfangs Grunde der Antiphlogistischer
Chemie, the first German book based on the antiphlogistic
chemistry of Lavoisier, and had asked his teacher, John
Afzehus, for permission to work in the small laboratory in his
spare time Students were at liberty to work there only once
a week, but that was not enough for Berzehus He pleaded
with Afzehus, who, as a test, tried to discourage him by order-
ing him to read several voluminous works on pharmacy This
would have checked the most ambitious college student But
Berzelius waded through the mass of involved preparations and
hieroglyphics, and once more appealed to Afzehus

"Do you know a laboratory from a kitchen?" laughed his
teacher. Strange that he should have asked such a question,
when his own laboratory was but a converted kitchen. Little
did he realize that years later, when Berzelius was to do his
classic work, his laboratory would also be his kitchen Afzehus
was adamant. "You may come only when the others work/'
he told him But even school authorities were not going to
stand in his way. He pleaded with the caretaker, even bribed
him, and soon found access to the laboratory through the back
door when Afzelius was away. For some days John worked in
secret excitement performing the textbook experiments and
trying some of his own invention. Then one day he was caught.
For a while, Afzehus stood in the darkness watching this boy
carefully handling all kinds of chemical apparatus. Then he
confronted the culprit. He rebuked Berzehus for daring to
break the rules of the school John made no answer. He was

BERZELIUS 97

picturing expulsion. But Afzelius was only jesting. "Hereafter
you must use the front entrance of the laboratory. And you
may steal in even when I am looking,"

But still Berzelius did not have enough freedom for his own
work. He rented a student's room which boasted an adjoining
windowless den with a fireplace. Here he spent some of the
most exciting hours of his life. "One day/' he wrote, "I was
making fuming nitric acid and noticed some gas escaping. I
collected it over water in bottles to find out what the gas was.
I suspected oxygen, and seldom have I had a moment of such
pure and heartfelt joy as when the glowing splint placed in
the gas burst into flame and lighted up my dark laboratory."

Then, after a series of painstaking experiments, he prepared
a paper on a peculiar gas called nitrous oxide. He presented
it to his teacher, who shook his head and sent it first to the
College of Medicine and then to the Academy of Science. To
the disgust of Berzelius, the paper was refused, not because it
was unworthy of an expert experimenter, but "because they did
not approve the new chemical nomenclature" of Lavoisier
which he had dared to use. Against such scientific inertia did
Berzelius have to contend.

In the meantime, while Berzelius was completing his work
at the University, Alessandro Volta, professor of physics at
Pavia, invented a new machine for producing electricity. This
invention like many others was the result of an accident. A few
years before, his countryman, Aloisio Galvani, had left some
dissected frogs hanging by a copper hook from an iron balcony.
As the wind blew the bodies of the frogs against the iron the
legs of the dead frogs contracted and wriggled. An almost in-
describable phenomenon. Active muscular contractions from
the limbs of dead frogs! Galvani was amazed. In his place, an-
other man might have astonished the world with some mysteri-
ous explanation of life after death. But he did not explain the
phenomenon on the basis of a resurrection. The days of the old
alchemy were past.

He made an ingenious but erroneous explanation. Volta set
to work to find the true cause of this "animal electricity."
Slowly he came to believe that the electricity produced be-
longed to the metals and not to the frog's legs. He proved it
to the astonishment of the scientific world. Furthermore, he
made good use of his discovery. By connecting a series of twp
dissimilar metals, zinc and silver, separated by a piece of doth
moistened in a solution of salt, he obtained a weak electric
current. He joined a larger series of these metals and obtained

98 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

a stronger flow of electricity. Volta had invented the "voltaic
pile," forerunner of the modern storage battery.

Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of Eng-
land received the first announcement of this discovery in a
private letter (March 20, 1800) from Volta who was a Fellow
of the Society. Before reading it to the Royal Society in June,
Banks showed it to Anthony Carlisle and William Nichol-
son. These men were not slow to grasp the immense possibilities
of this new force. It could, perhaps, be used to disrupt hitherto
unbreakable substances. They immediately sent the energy of
a voltaic pile through water decomposing it into hydrogen and
oxygen which formed at the two platinum poles of their electric
machine. Fourcroy, friend and enemy of Lavoisier, built a
large voltaic pile and ignited with it hitherto incombustible
metals.

The imagination of Berzelius was at once kindled Here was
a mighty weapon for the chemist. He began to work with his
oldest half-brother, Lars Ekmarck, on voltaic electricity. His
thesis for his medical degree was on the action of electricity on
organic bodies The following year, with his friend, von
Hisinger, he published a paper on the division of compounds
by means of the voltaic pile, in which he propounded the
theory that metals always went to the negative pole and non-
metals to the positive pole of the electrical machine. Benjamin
Franklin had introduced this idea of positive and negative
electricity He had called a body positively electrified whe
could be repelled by a glass rod rubbed with silk.

The work of Berzelius, however, hardly caused a ripple in
the chemical stream of progress. But four years later a young
chemist in England, reading an account of his works and fol-
lowing them up, fired the imagination of the world Benjamin
Franklin had "disarmed the thunder of terrors and taught the
fire of heaven to obey his voice," but now Humphry Davy,
using Volta's electric pile and the research of Berzelius, isolated
such new and strange elements as staggered men even more
than the discovery of phosphorus a century before.

Potash and soda had been known to be compound in nature,
but no method had been found to break them uf> into their
component elements. Davy, in whose laboratory immortal Fara-
day washed bottles, built a powerful voltaic battery of copper,
and in October, 1806, sent the energy of one hundred and fifty
cells through some molten potash He watched for a deep-
seald decomposition. At the negative wire of platinum he soon
saw globules of a silvery substance spontaneously take fire.

BERZELIUS 99

"His joy knew no bounds, he began to dance, and it was some
time before he could control himself to continue his experi-
ments." He worked so hard that he soon became ill and all
London prayed for his recovery.

Fashionable London received Davy's isolation of the metal
potassium as another wonder of the world, and he was lionized.
People paid twenty pounds to gain admittance to his lectures.
The French Academy of Sciences awarded him a medaL
Berzelius would have shared this prize had it been known that
Davy's discoveries resulted from the previous work of the
Swede. This was the statement of Vauquelin, discoverer of
chromium.

Once before, Davy, son of a poor woodcarver of Penzance,
had achieved overnight fame by his discovery of the physio-
logical effects of laughing gas that colorless nitrous oxide
first obtained by Priestley in 1776 and later described by
Berzelius to his teacher Afzehus. Distinguished people in all
walks of life had come to London to inhale the gas which had
raised Davy's pulse "upwards of twenty strokes and made him
dance about the laboratory as a madman." Even the poet
Coleridge was among those who came, but admitted that Davy's
epic poem on the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt had
interested him more.

For a long time chlorine was considered to be compound in
nature. Berzelius, too, believed this and disagreed with Davy,
who considered it an element. Davy's illuminating experiments
later convinced the Swede that chlorine was not "oxymuriatic
acid," an oxygen compound of hydrochloric acid, but a simple
elementary gas. When Anna, his housekeeper, complained that
a dish she was cleaning "smelled of oxymuriatic acid,"
Berzelius now corrected her: "Listen, Anna, you must not^say
oxidized muriatic acid any more. Say chlorine, it is better."

After this controversy over chlorine, Berzelius, now professor
of chemistry, biology, and medicine at the University of Stock-
holm, was eager to meet Davy. However, "he had previously
received an invitation from Berthollet to visit Paris. While
wavering between Paris and London war broke out between
Sweden and Napoleon, and Berzelius travelled to England. He
met Davy in his laboratory at the newly founded Royal Insti-
tution. They spoke about chlorine and the visitor compli-
mented Davy on his important contributions.

He invited his visitor to his house the next morning.
Berzelius was ushered into the dining room by the French
butler. Davy made him wait there long enough to become

100 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

fascinated by all its splendor and wealthhe was the husband
of a wealthy widow. Then while they breakfasted, the English-
man and the Swedish scientist talked again about chemistry.
Davy tried to impress upon his visitor his own eminence. At
twenty-two he had been selected by Count Rumford as professor
of chemistry at the Royal Institution. At thirty-three he had
been knighted by the King Fashionable London was at his feet.
Berzelius, who was to be the teacher of kings and princes and
the recipient of every honor that the chemical world had to
offer, found such putting on of airs distasteful. Many years
later, while travelling through Denmark and Sweden, Davy
visited Berzelius, whom he considered "one of the great
ornaments of the age." But a breach between the two chemists
occurred soon after, due to the mischief of the secretary of
the Royal Society, and they never saw each other again

Before leaving for home, Berzelius bought much chemical
apparatus, and made a trip to visit Sir William Herschel at
Slough, where the erstwhile oboist and now celebrated astron-
omer showed him his great telescopes, whose mirrors he had
stood grinding for hours with his own hands while his sister
fed him. Then Berzelius visited Cambridge where he wrote, "It
was with a feeling of reverence I visited the room where New-
ton made the greater part of his splendid discoveries." Later, at
a luncheon, he spent "one of the most memorable days of my
life" when he met, among other distinguished scientists of
England, Thomas Young the versatile genius who established
the wave theory of light by his discovery of the interference
of light. Upon his return, the King of Sweden appointed him
Director of the newly established Academy of Agriculture.

Shortly afterwards, Berzelius accomplished one task which
did much to make the road of chemical learning easier to
travel. Quickly and decisively he abandoned the old sign
language of chemistry and introduced in its place a rational
system of chemical shorthand. "It is easier to write an ab-
breviated word than to draw a figure which has little analogy
with words and which, to be legible, must be made of a larger
size than our ordinary writing/' This was the basis of the great
change he had planned when the Swedish Government put
him in charge of compiling the new Swedish Pharmacopoeia.
"The chemical signs ought to be letters for the greater facility
of writing, and not disfigure a printed book. I shall therefore
take for the chemical sign," he said, "the initial letter of the
Latin name of each chemical element," thus:

BERZELIUS 101

Carbon C Oxygen O

Hydrogen H Phosphorus P

Nitrogen N Sulfur s

"If the first two letters be common to two metals I shall use
both the initial letter and the first letter they have not in
common," as:

Gold (aurum) Au Silicon (silicum) Si

Silver (argentum) Ag Antimony (stibium). Sb

Copper (cuprum) Cu Tin (stannum) . ... Sn

Cobalt (cobaltum) . Co Platinum Pt

Potassium (kalium).. K (written Po for a while)

A firm believer in the atomic theory of Dalton, Berzelius
made his new symbols stand for the relative atomic weights of
the atoms. The initial letter capitalized represented one atom
of the element. The symbols stood for definite quantitative
measurements and "enabled us to indicate without long peri-
phrases the relative number of atoms of the different con-
stituents present in each compound body." Thus they gave a
clue to the chemical composition of substances. This was a
tremendous step toward making chemistry a mathematical
science.

True, William Higgins a generation before had introduced
symbols, writing "I" for inflammable air or hydrogen, "D" for
dephlogisticated air or oxygen, and "S" for sulfur. He had
even suggested the use of equivalent weights of the elements
(attractive forces, he called them) expressing the formula of
water as "I 2S $ where 6s/ B represented the equivalent
weight of oxygen to hydrogen. But his writings were unclear,
his explanations hazy, and he never undertook to generalize
his innovations.

Berzelius went further in his attempt to simplify the science,
He joined the symbols of the elements to represent the simplest
parts of compounds. Thus copper oxide was written CuO, and
zinc sulfide ZnS. He had, at first, denoted the number of
oxygen atoms by dots and the number of sulfur atoms by
commas; thus carbon dioxide was C and carbon disulfide was
C. But he soon discarded these dots and commas, although for
decades after, mineralogists utilized this method of writing the
formulas of minerals.

Berzelius introduced the writing of algebraic exponents to
designate more than one atom of an element present in a com-

102

CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

pound. These exponents were later changed by two German
chemists, Liebig and Poggendorff, to subscripts. Subscripts
are small numbers placed at the lower right corner of the
symbols of substances where the atoms occur in the compound
in numbers greater than one. Thus carbon dioxide, which
contains one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen, is
written COa.

These symbols and formulas were first introduced in 1814
in a table of atomic weights published in the Annals of Philos-
ophy. Within a few years the literature of chemistry began to
show a radical change. Edward Turner of Union College,
London, in the fourth edition of his Elements of Chemistry,
published in 1832, used these symbols with the apology that
he "ventured to introduce chemical symbols as an organ of
instruction." Instead of the hieroglyphics of the gold seekers,
chemists used the simple system of Berzehus. And what a world
of difference there was between the symbolic language of
Lavoisier and the Berzelian system.

As with every great advance in science, there were objections.
Dalton, himself, strangely enough thought his own picture-
language superior. "Berzelius' symbols are horrifying," he
-wrote. "A young student might as soon learn Hebrew as make
himself acquainted with them." He must have forgotten his
own picture of alum which he represented thus:

where ^7 was sulfur,
potash, and (T!) alumina.

The new system, however, stood the test of time. Not only were
the original symbols of Berzelius accepted but they also formed
tlie basis for the naming and writing of newly discovered ele-
ments and compounds.

And now Berzelius set himself a still greater task. While
.working on a new textbook, he came across the work of Richter
op the proportions in which substances combine. This started
feim on an investigation of atomic weights. Dalton's relative

BERZELIUS 103

weights of the atoms were both inaccurate and incomplete.
The Swedish scientist realized that the chemist must have accu-
rate relative weights if chemical manipulations were to become
more than the guesswork of the old alchemists. He was going
to find out the relative weights of all the different elements
then known "Without work of this kind," he declared, "no day
could follow the morning dawn " At the same time he was
ready to put all his indefatigable energy into the work of
establishing Dalton's atomic theory by analyzing every chemical
compound he could obtain

Few would have attempted such a colossal task Think of the
time and the conditions under which he worked. In the
reminiscences of his famous pupil, Woehler, is a description
of the room in which Berzehus labored. "The laboratory con-
sisted of two ordinary rooms with the very simplest arrange-
ments; there were neither furnaces nor hoods, neither water
system nor gas. Against the walls stood some closets with the
chemicals, in the middle the mercury trough and the blast lamp
table. Beside this was the sink consisting of a stone water
holder with a stopcock and a pot standing under it. In the
kitchen close by, in which Anna prepared the food, stood a
small heating furnace." The chemicals he had to use in his
analyses were often either unpurchasable or too impure to be
used for accurate results

Today, with every modern appliance of science at his dis-
posal, many an analyst would shrink from such a stupendous
undertaking. But Berzelius did not even waver. He would
weigh and measure until he had established the true relative
weights of the atoms. To insure accuracy he purified every
chemical reagent he used, not once but dozens of times. Even
the best apparatus which the chemical world could offer him
was still very crude when compared with that of today. As he
had to construct his own apparatus in many cases, he took les-
sons from an itinerant Italian glassblower, Joshua Vacanno. He
devised numerous novel instruments of precision. He invented
new processes of purifying chemicals, and changed many prac-
tices of analysis then current.

Holidays, distractions, hobbies, even food meant very little
to Berzelius during these months of toil. His was an indomita-
ble spirit. Once, while attempting to recover gold from some
fulminates, a violent explosion almost killed him. For a
month he was forced to remain in a dark room to save his
eyesight. When he finally emerged, he went back to his labo-
ratory.

104

CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

A new observation always gave him great pleasure, and with
beaming eyes he would call to his students, "Well, boys, I have
found something interesting " When he had to use a platinum
crucible he found there was only one in all Sweden Fortu-
nately von Hisinger was ready to lend it to him Less ^lucky
with other necessary pieces of apparatus, he had to do without
them or invent some other method of analysis. For ten long
years, in the midst of teaching and editorial work, he kept
analyzing compound after compound, until he had studied the
compositions of more than two thousand chemical substances.
His blowpipe and balance, his eudiometer and crucible, finally
gave him a set of atomic weights of the fifty different elements
known to the scientific world of his time.

Compare his list of atomic weights with those of Dal ton two
decades before him and with the International Table of
Atomic Weights of today, and marvel at the skill and accuracy
of this giant among experimenters.

His numbers were not entirely accepted at first. The British
Association for the Advancement of Science was sceptical.
Turner was asked to verify the figures and found them to be

Dalton's Atomic Berzelius' List International

Chlorine

Copper

Hydrogen ,. ..

Lead

Nitrogen
Oxygen ... . .

Potassium

Silver,

Sulfur,.... ,

Weights-1808
unknown
56
1

95
5
7

unknown

100

13

1826
3541
6300
1. 00

20712
1405
1600
39.19

108.12
3218

Table-1957
35457
6354
1008

207 210
14008
16.000
39096

107 880
32.066

correct. Later Jean Stas, a Belgian chemist, found an error in
the atomic weight of carbon. Berzelius' whole list began to be
questioned. Experiments were started in many of the chemical
laboratories of Europe to find other errors, but the results only
vindicated the experimental exactitude of Berzelius. Some have
attempted to rob him of this glory by crediting the remarkable
agreement of his figures with those of the present day to a
fortunate balancing of experimental errors. The fact remains,
however, that his Table of the Atomic Weights of the Elements
Still stands as a record of skilful manipulation and extraor-
dinary perseverance.
In 1816 Gahn, an Industrial chemist, though past seventy,

BERZELIUS 105

persuaded Berzelius to join in the purchase of a chemical fac-
tory at Gripsholm. In the course of this undertaking Berzelius
discovered the element selenium while examining sulfuric acid.
He did not remain here very long, for fire soon destroyed the
factory. This was not his only industrial venture. He joined
A. G. Werner, Professor of Mineralogy at Freyberg, in a min-
eral water business and later attempted, with borrowed capital,
the commercial manufacture of vinegar. But he was no business
man. His ventures all ended disastrously, and it took Berzelius
ten years of tireless work to repay his enormous debts.

He undertook extensive editorial work and worked long in
his laboratory. Berzelius was as a rule cheerful, Woehler re-
ports, and during his work "he used to relate all sorts of fun,
and could laugh right heartily over a good story. If he was in
bad humor and had red eyes, one knew that he had an attack of
his periodic nervous headaches. He would shut himself up for
days together, ate nothing and saw no one." Never-ending work,
no relaxation, a life of solitude, had sapped his health. His
pains in the head Berzelius curiously associated with the phases
of the moon. He seemed to suffer most between eight in the
morning and eight in the evening on the days of full and new
moon. On one occasion, in Pans, he was invited to attend
a dinner. Laplace, the astronomer, sceptical of the Swedish
scientist's association of headache with the moon's position in
the heavens, had sent him the invitation as a test, believing
that the Swede could not possibly know the day of the new
moon in a foreign country. Yet Berzelius had to refuse the
invitation because of a severe headache

Before very long he was back in Stockholm, working again
in his laboratory, and taking occasional excursions, until his
health became so poor that he could not handle his apparatus.
Berzelius was now the most eminent chemist in all the world.
He was called upon to fill all kinds of honorary positions.
An outbreak of cholera in Stockholm in 1834 found Berzelius
chairman of a committee superintending the burial of the vic-
tims of the deadly epidemic. At five every morning, he was at
the graveyard, until one morning a severe cold weakened him
so that he lost all desire to live. He was aging, sick and ter-
ribly lonely.

Berzelius comes to his friend Count Trolle-Wachtmeister to
talk about a subject which, until then, has seldom worried him.
The Count listens tenderly to the old man and then advises
him: "I suppose one can be quite happy without entering into
the married state, but he who has never experienced the hap-

106 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

piness o having a beloved wife by his side knows nothing of
the finest side of life." Berzelius' eyes brighten and he asks a
very personal question. "By a judicious choice it is not too late
to enjoy this experience," is the answer. Berzelius is reassured
but he must ask another question. "To be perfectly happy,"
replies his friend, "a man should have a chez sot and he ought
not to look for it outside his own dwelling." Plain words and
to the point.

Many years back, while he was still young and had just
thrown himself into the fascinating work of a chemist, Ber-
zelius had thought about marriage One of his foreign friends,
a scientist, was happily married. To him he had gone for
advice. "Could a man divide his time between the strenuous
work of the laboratory and the responsibilities of domestic
life?" The answer he received had helped him to decide.
"Althought I am as happy as only the father of a family can
be," his friend had told him, "I believe that if I were now
unmarried, I should certainly not marry except under the in-
fluence of an unconquerable passion." Berzelius chose the path
of wholehearted devotion to science.

But things were different now. His health was very poor and
he was lonely. Trolle-Wachtmeister's words were balm to his
Aching soul. The aged chemist lost no time. He visited the
town councillor, his old friend Poppius, who, he knew, had a
daughter just twenty-four years old. Hesitating, and fearful of
the answer, Berzelius asked him for the hand of his beautiful
daughter. Great was his surprise when not only the parents
showed delight, but the girl herself exhibited no displeasure
at the thought. For was he not the most distinguished chemist
of Europe? Students flocked to him from all over the world.
Even kings came to him to learn his science. Sweden's King
and Crown Prince were among his pupils, and the Czar and
Prince of Russia came to visit him in his laboratory. A signal
honor to be the wife of such a celebrity!

Encouraged in his suit, Berzelius must first regain his lost
health. He visited Paris and was introduced to King Louis
Philippe who talked to him for fully an hour, while the heir
apparent, Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, flattered him by saying
that he had received his first lessons in chemistry from the
pages of a French edition of Berzelius' Lehrbuch der Chemie.
In Austria he met Metternich, and at Eger he received a lunch-
eon Invitation from the poet Goethe. More than fifty years
back Goethe, as a lad of nineteen, had become interested in
chemistry while at Leipzig, and had built himself a little blast

BERZELIUS 107

furnace in which he labored to make alchemic gold and medici-
nal salts. He soon abandoned this futile pursuit to engage in
more practical science. He bought a laboratory and undertook
the analysis of well water. At thirty-five this poetic dreamer de-
veloped an interest in osteology. While at Jena in 1787, he was
comparing human and animal skulls with his friend Lodi,
when he hit upon the right track. "Eureka!" he cried, "I have
found neither gold nor silver but the human intermaxillary
jaw bone." This discovery stunned the world. This bone had
heretofore been known to exist only in animals. It had distin-
guished man from the ape. What a flood of discussion was
started by this dilettante in sciencel Once again science heard
of him when, seven years later, he stood brazenly alone to
attack the color theory of Newton. Singlehanded he fought
every hoary-bearded physicist of Europe with his own concep-
tion of color as a combination of light and shadow. He, too,
had refused to accept the atoms of Dalton.

Goethe's interest in science was lifelong. The great poet and
the great chemist Berzelius walked arm in arm to an extinct
volcano whose origin and nature they discussed. Goethe had
been interested in the phenomenon of volcanic eruptions and
many years before had written a pamphlet on this subject,
claiming that no lava would be found in the crater of the
volcano. Berzelius believed that if they dug they would find
lava. This turned out to be the case and the poet was pleased.
Goethe asked him to stay another day, for he wanted to watch
Berzelius work with his blowpipe. He marvelled at the skill
of his guest, and expressed the regret that, at his age (he was
now over seventy), it would be impossible to become an expert.

At fifty-six Berzelius, stout, middle-sized, of a pleasing per-
sonality and polished manners, married the eldest daughter of
Poppius. Napoleon's former marshal, Bernadotte, then Charles
XIV, King of Norway and Sweden, sent him a personal letter
extolling his greatness. He was created a baron and elected
member of the Upper Chamber of the Swedish Diet. In 1840
when he was sixty-one, the Diet voted him two thousand dollars
as an annual pension. His marriage proved a happy one, and
instead of forsaking the strenuous work of the chemist, as Davy
had done, he continued to make important contributions from
his laboratory. Although, toward the dose of his life, some of
his generalizations were discarded, yet in his two hundred and
fifty papers covering every phase of chemical work he gave to
posterity an abundance of facts from which the world long
continued to gather rich harvests.

VIII

WOEHLER
UREA WITHOUT A KIDNEY

ABOUT one hundred and thirty years ago an epoch-making
event took place in the laboratory of a young German
still in his twenties. He had just returned from the laboratory
of Berzelius in Stockholm, to teach in the newly founded mu-
nicipal trade school in Berlin. A great idea was hatching in
Friedrich Woehler's head. He had heard discussions in every
scientific circle he had visited of a mysterious vital force, as
elusive as phlogiston.

Inside the living body of plants and animals, it was thought,
burned a steady invisible flame, and through this flame a mys-
terious vital force built up the sugars, the starches, the proteins
and hundreds of other very complex compounds. This vague
creative force existed in the animal and vegetable kingdoms
but not in the mineral world. Men believed that the substances
which constituted the texture of vegetation differed from min-
eral substances in that the former could not be built up or
synthesized in the laboratory. "Nothing but the texture of liv-
ing vegetables, nothing but their vegetating organs, could form
the matter extracted from them; and no instrument invented
by art could imitate the compositions which are found in the
organic machines of plants." Man could never imitate the
power of this vital force. It was one of those mystic causations
of which man was to remain in ignorance all the days of his
life. Man's mental machinery and his chemical engines were
too puny and simple to reproduce this force of nature. Some
even doubted whether these organic compounds obeyed the
laws of chemistry. Such was the prevailing opinion of the
world in 1828.

Berzelius himself spoke of the impassable gulf which sepa-
rated organic compounds from inorganic substances. Leopold
Gmelin, Fnedrich's celebrated teacher at the University of
Heidelberg, firmly believed that organic compounds could not
be synthesized. Yet Woehler was young and he doubted. He
agreed with the eminent French chemist Chevreul that "to
regard the distinction as absolute and invariable would be
contrary to the spirit of science." If the laws of nature were
tfee thoughts of God, then God would vouchsafe these thoughts

108

WOEHLER 109

to man if only he worked tirelessly to find them Back in his
mind was the suspicion that vital force was another one of
those cryptic phrases, a creed which if accepted would destroy
the progress of chemistry. Like the Chinese who returned his
first watch with the plaint that "it died last night," science had
endowed those chemical compounds of living matter with the
hidden, moving springs of vitalism.

Slowly, carefully, laboriously, Woehler worked away in the
sacred temple of his laboratory If he could only make one of
those innumerable substances which until now only the intri-
cate chemical workshop of the living organism had fashionedl
What a blow he could strike at this false ideaa blow even
more powerful than that which immortal Lavoisier had dealt
to the mischievous theory of phlogiston half a century before
him! As he dreamed and hoped he kept working, watching his
test tubes and flasks, his evaporating dishes and condensers.

Friedrich Woehler had read the recently published work of
Chevreul who had shown that many of the fats and other sub-
stances occurring in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms
were identical. The barrier between animal and vegetable mat-
ter had thus been broken down. He was familiar with the work
on animal chemistry of Rouelle, magnetic teacher of Lavoisier.
These men had taken the first steps.

Woehler's goal was alluring. Experiment after experiment
gave negative results but he kept plodding away. Once, in
Berzelius' own laboratory in Stockholm, he had made some
"peculiar white crystalline substance" which he could not
identify. Four years passed. Then one afternoon the miracle
happened.

Picture the amazement of this young researcher gazing upon
a product which he had made out of lifeless compounds in an
inanimate flask. Here under his eyes was a single gram oHong,
white, needle-like, glistening crystals which Rouelle had first
found half a century before in urine and which Fourcroy had
later studied and named urea. This white compound had never
before been produced outside the living organism.

It was not strange that Woehler recognized at once this
crystalline urea. He had started his career in science as a
student of medicine and while competing for a prize for the
best essay on the waste products found in urine, had come
across urea.

Woehler was excited He was standing upon the threshold
of a new era in chemistry, witnessing "the great tragedy of
science, the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.**

1 10 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

He had synthesized the first organic compound outside the liv-
ing body. The mind of young Woehler almost reeled at the
thought of the virgin fields rich in mighty harvests which now
awaited the creatures of the crucible. He kept his head.
He carefully analyzed his product to verify its Identity. He must
assure himself that this historic crystal was the same as that
formed under the influence of the so-called vital force.

When he was sure of his ground, he wrote to Berzelius,
"I must tell you that I can prepare urea without requiring a
kidney of an animal, either man or dog " The Swede enthusi-
astically spread the news. The world of science was electrified.
Chevreul hailed the achievement with joy. Woehler had actu-
ally synthesized urea out of inorganic compounds! What was
to prevent others from building up the sugars, the proteins,
perhaps even protoplasm, the colloidal basis of life itself?
A feeble protest still sounded from the vitalists. Urea was per-
haps midway between the organic and inorganic world. For to
make urea one must use ammonia which originally was of
organic origin. The vital force present in organic substances
never disappeared and consequently was capable of giving rise
to other organic bodies. So they argued. But even that whisper
was soon lost in the great tumult of excitement. It was indeed
a brilliant new day for chemistry.

Woehler published his modest memoir on the synthesis of
urea in 1828 and a century and a quarter later Dr. Robert B.
Woodward of Harvard University synthesized cortisone, a very
complex hormone used in the treatment of arthritis. What a
century of research between Woehler's urea and Woodward's
cortisone! Six hundred thousand compounds have been pre-
pared in this branch of synthetic chemistry, while every year
four thousand new ones are added. No wonder that when
Gmelin was preparing his handbook of chemistry he pleaded
for chemists to stop discovering to give him a chance to catch
up with his work. Woehler, a modest man, would have been
the last to claim for himself the distinction of being the fore-
runner of such tremendous achievements.

Friedrich Woehler was born at the opening of the nineteenth
century near Frankfort-on-the-Main. His father, Auguste, a man
well educated in philosophy and science, was Master of the
Horse to the Crown Prince of Hesse Cassel who was feared
for his violent, impetuous temper. One day during an inspec-
tion tour of his stables, something very trifling displeased the
Prince who began to abuse his servant. Auguste listened to his
vile tongue until the Prince attempted to add a beating to his

WOEHLER 111

tongue lashing. Woehler would not put up with such humilia-
tion even at the hands of a royal personage. Seizing a stout
riding whip, he struck back fiercely until his master lay bleed-
ing on the ground. Then jumping upon the fleetest horse in
the stables and accompanied by a groom who was to return
the steed, Auguste fled fom Cassell. The Elector, fearing ridi-
cule, did not pursue him.

Thus it came about that Friedrich was born not in the house
of his parents but in the home of his uncle, who was clergyman
of the village of Escherscheim. He received his early education
from his father, who interested him in nature and encouraged
him in drawing and in his hobby of mineral collecting. Fried-
rich carried on a brisk exchange of minerals with his boyhood
friends, which he continued even in later life. On one occasion
he met the old poet Goethe, who was examining specimens in
the shop of a mineral dealer in Frankfort.

Soon this boy added chemistry to his list of hobbies. Through
his father he met a friend who had a rich library and a private
chemical laboratory where he obtained permission to work.
He built voltaic piles out of zinc plates and some old Russian
copper coins he had collected. The master of the German mint
presented him with an old furnace in which, with the aid o
his sister to blow the bellows, he would build a roaring fire.
And while he experimented he burned his fingers with phos-
phorus, and on another occasion was almost killed when a
flask containing poisonous chlorine cracked in his hands.

At Marburg University, where his father, too, had been a
student, he started to study medicine and won a prize for his
investigations on the passage of different waste materials into
urine. He performed numerous ingenious experiments upon
his dog and even upon himself in preparing for this essay.
Some of these experiments were dangerous to his health.
He had not avoided them, however, even as twenty years before
him, Dr. John Richardson Young, at twenty-two, had given
his life at Hagerstown, Maryland, while using himself as a
human beaker and test tube to prove that gastric juice and
not a mysterious vital spirit was the essential factor in digestion.
But chemistry still fascinated him. He built a little laboratory
in his private room and prepared cyanogen iodide for the first
time. He brought it to his teacher, Professor Wurzer, who re-
proached him for wasting his time on chemical experiments
when he should have been studying his medicine. The sensitive
boy was hurt and thereafter never attended the professor's
lectures.

112 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Soon the fame of Leopold Gmelin attracted him to Heidel-
berg. Here he continued his studies, gained the degree of Doc-
tor of Medicine, Surgery, and Midwifery, and made ready to
start on his travels to visit the great hospitals of Europe in
further preparation for the practice of medicine. But Gmelin
had watched this lad work in the chemical laboratory. He had
told young Friedrich it would be a waste of time to attend his
own lectures. Laboratory work was more important. Gmelin
had read with pride his student's paper on the discovery of
cyanic acid. He did not, at the time, dream this would in a
few years lead to urea, but Gmelin was going to save Woehler
for the disciples of Hermes He spoke to him of the allur-
ing career of a chemist. It was not very difficult to persuade
Woehler. Often he had been tempted to turn away from medi-
cine. Gmelin mentioned Berzelius whose fame as chemist had
spread throughout Europe. He aroused in Friedrich the hope
that perhaps Berzelius would give him permission to work
under him in Stockholm.

Woehler wrote to the Swede, and within a few weeks received
this answer: "Anyone who has studied chemistry under the
direction of Leopold Gmelin has very little to learn from me,
but I cannot forego the pleasure of making your personal
acquaintance. You can come whenever it is agreeable to you/'
Woehler was walking on air. He hurried to Gmelin to tell him
the good news. He was to make a pilgrimage to the laboratory
of Berzelius.

He started at once. When he reached the town of Liibeck
on the Baltic, he learned that he would have to wait six" weeks
for a small sailing vessel that was to take him to Stockholm.
He was too impatient to wait so long in idleness. Through a
friend, with whom as a boy he had exchanged minerals, he
gained access to a private laboratory where he set to work
to find a method of making larger quantities of potassium, that
violently active metal which Davy had just isolated.

At last he was on his way to Sweden. When he stepped off
the boat the officer of the guard who examined his passport,
on learning that he had come from Germany to study under
Berzelius, declined to accept the usual fee. "I have too much
respect for science and my illustrious countryman," he said,
**to take money from one who in the pursuit of knowledge has
undertaken so long a journey/* Instead of the fee Woehler
presented him with a piece of the wonderful potassium he had
just prepared.

He reached Stockholm at night and nervously waited for

WOEHLER 113

the morning. "With a beating heart I stood before Berzelius'
door and rang the bell. It was opened by a well-clad, portly,
vigorous looking man It was Berzelms himself. As he led me
into his laboratory I was in a dream." Woehler never forgot
his cordial reception by this master.

They wasted no time. Berzehus supplied the young student
with a platinum crucible, a wash bottle, a balance and a set
of weights, advised him to buy his own blowpipe, and set him
to work on the examination of minerals. That was to be his
first training in accurate analysis. When Woehler hurried, to
Berzelius to show him the result of his work his teacher warned
him, "Doctor, that was quick but bad." Woehler remembered
this valuable advice. Woehler now turned once more to his
recently discovered cyanic acid and succeeded in preparing
silver cyanate, a compound of this acid.

In the meantime, in the laboratory of Gay-Lussac in Paris
worked another young German, Justus Liebig. This handsome,
boisterous student, three years younger than Friedrich, was busy
with the explosive fulminates. As a lad Liebig, whose father
owned a small chemical factory, had seen an itinerant trades-
man making fireworks in his native city of Darmstadt. He was
eager to learn the secrets of these explosive chemicals. During
these researches Liebig prepared a strange compound. This
substance was similar in composition to the silver cyanate of
Woehler yet vastly different from it in both physical and chem-
ical properties. Here was something very puzzling How could
two compounds made up of the identical elements in exactly
the same proportions possess different properties? "Something
must be wrong," said Liebig, and straightway he doubted
Woehler's results. Perhaps he had misread his paper. He veri-
fied the results very carefully. Both Woehler and he were right
in their conclusions.

Liebig communicated with his compatriot in Sweden. Woehler
could not understand this strange phenomenon. He asked his
master Berzelius to help him. The Swedish chemist recognized
a tremendous discovery. Isomers this was the term coined by
Berzelius to designate chemical compounds having the same
composition yet differing in properties these had been discov-
ered by two young men. This was only the beginning of similar
findings in this new field. There were many substances which
formed dozens of isomers. The phenomenon of isomerism
in the chemistry of the carbon compounds helps to explain
the tremendous number of compounds in organic chemistry.
Later Liebig met Woehler at the latter's home. Woehler toM

114 CRUCIBLES; THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Liebig of his excursion with his famous teacher through north-
ern Norway and Sweden, during which he met Sir Humphry
Davy returning from a fishing trip. What an inspiration was
the memory of that scene as he stood between Berzelms and
Davy, the two foremost chemists of Europe.

At the time of their meeting, Liebig, though twenty-one,
was professor of chemistry at the small University of Giessen.
He had received this appointment through the influence of
Von Humboldt, the celebrated scientist, whom he had met in
Gay-Lussac's laboratory in Paris. His salary amounted to only
one hundred and twenty dollars a year plus about forty dollars
for annual laboratory expenses It was here that Liebig in-
vented and developed a method of organic analysis still used
today.

Woehler was teaching in the city trade school of Berlin and
was spending a great deal of time translating into German
some of the work of Berzelms from the Swedish, which he had
learned while at Stockholm. Liebig admonished him to "throw
away this writing to the devil and go back to the laboratory
where you belong/*

They discussed their mutual researches and their future
plans for work to be performed in their respective laboratories.
"Liebig expressed joyful assent at once and a research on
mellitic acid was selected and carried to a successful conclu-
sion," Fulmimc acid was proposed as the next problem, but it
was soon abandoned. "Fulmmic acid we will allow to remain
undisturbed/* wrote Liebig. "I have vowed to have nothing to
do with the stuff." For Liebig had almost lost his eyesight when
some of it exploded under his nose and he was sent away to a
hospital to ponder over its dangers He also reminded Woehler
how years before, while still a student at high school, it had
exploded in the classroom, and he had been expelled with the
verdict that he was "hopelessly useless."

Not that there could not be found men brave enough to
wrestle with such obstreperous substances. Nickles, a Swiss, lost
his life in an attempt to isolate fluorine, an element more
poisonous than chlorine. Louyet, too, had died of the effects
of this gas while Knox, a Scotchman, ruined his health in its
study. Dulong, before them, had lost an eye and three fingers
w&tle preparing nitrogen trichloride for the first time, and
continued to experiment with this compound even after the
accident On another occasion this same chemical knocked
Faraday unconscious. The annals of chemistry contain many
such examples of heroism.

WOEHLER 115

In 1832 Woehler lost his young wife whom he had married
two years before. It was a sudden shock that threatened to
upset him permanently. He went to his friend Liebig for
consolation and found it in his laboratory. During this year
of bereavement the two young scientists published their joint
paper on oil of bitter almonds. They studied a series of new
compounds all containing an identical group of atoms which
remained unchanged through the most diverse transformations
which their parent bodies underwent. To this unchanging
group of atoms, consisting of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen,
they gave the prosaic name of benzoyl. When Berzelius read
of this work he saw in it the dawn of a new day in chemistry
and suggested for this chemical group or radical the more
poetic name of proin, the dawn. In Paris the chemical world
talked a great deal of these researches.

Their work temporarily completed, Woehler returned to
Cassel where he had been called the previous year. "I am back
here again m my darkened solitude," he wrote to Liebig. "How
happy was I that we could work together face to face. The days
which I spend with you slip by like hours and I count them
among my happiest."

For five years Woehler remained in Cassel. Here he met and
married Julie Pfeiffer, a banker's daughter, by whom he had
four daughters; one of them, Emilie, was to act as his secre-
tary and biographer. His work in the field which he had opened
had brought him fame. When Strohmeyer, discoverer of the
element cadmium, died, Woehler was selected from among a
long list of candidates, including Liebig, to fill his chair at
the University of Gottingen, a position he held for almost half
a century. Liebig never begrudged him this honor.

The two friends continued to work together and in 1838 they
published the results of their experiments on uric acid, another
organic compound. It was in this report that these pioneers
foresaw the great future of organic chemistry. "The philosophy
of chemistry," they wrote, "must draw the conclusion that the
synthesis of all organic compounds must be looked upon not
merely as probable but as certain of ultimate achievement.
Sugar, salicin, morphine, will be artificially prepared/* This
was indeed prophetic.

The friendship of Woehler and Liebig stands out as a sub-
lime example of scientific fraternity. Liebig spared no words
in praise of his friend. "The achievement of our joint work
upon uric acid and oil of bitter almonds was his work. Without
envy and without jealousy, hand in hand we plodded our way;

116 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

when the one needed help the other was ready. Some idea of
this relationship will be obtained when I mention that many
of our smaller pieces of work which bear our joint names were
done by one alone; they were charming little gifts which one
presented to the other/' How different this from the too-fre-
quent haggling of scientists over priority of discoveries!

Woehler was a great tonic for the hot-tempered Liebig who,
as a student, had been forced to spend three days in jail for
taking part in a gang fight On this occasion he "made scur-
rilous remarks about those in authority and knocked the hat
from the head of not only police officer Schramm but even of
Councillor-m-Law Heim." More than once, when Liebig quar-
reled with a scientific contemporary who opposed his views,
Woehler's calm advice smoothed things over. Liebig accused
Elihard Mitscherlich, a student of Berzelius, of appropriating
the apparatus of others and calling them his own. Woehler
pleaded with his friend to stop the quarrel. "Granted that you
are perfectly in the right, that scientifically as well as per-
sonally you have cause to complain, by doing this you stoop
from the elevated position in which posterity will see you to
a vulgar sphere where the luster of your merits is sullied."
Liebig made many enemies. His irascibility had estranged
Berzelius whose friendship he valued very highly. He wrote
to him wishing for permission to dedicate a book to him,
Berzelius thanked him for this honor and incidentally criti-
cized the style of the book Liebig at once took offense, wrote
him an insulting letter, and their friendship was forever at
an end.

When Liebig got into trouble with Marchand, again Woehler
stepped into the breach. "To contend with Marchand/' he
counselled, "will do you no good whatever or be of little use
to science. It only makes you angry and hurts your liver. Imag-
ine that it is the year 1900 when we are both dissolved into
carbonic acid, water and ammonia, and our ashes, it may be,
are part of the bones of some dog that has despoiled our graves.
Who cares then whether we have lived in peace or anger; who
thinks then of thy polemics, of thy sacrifice, of thy health and
peace of mind for science? Nobody. But thy good ideas, the
new facts which thou has discovered these will be known and
remembered to all time. But how comes it that I should advise
tlie lion to eat sugar?"

Many of their vacations were spent travelling together. It was
difficult to tear Liebig away from his laboratory. Woehler on
one occasion tried to persuade him to join him on a trip

WOEHLER 117

through Italy. Woehler loved to take these excursions. He
would carry his sketch book or easel with him, for he was a
fair artist and the beauties of nature enthralled him. Liebig
cared more for the smell of the laboratory and the adventures
of chemical discovery. "After all what good will it do me to
have looked into the crater of Mt Vesuvius?" he remarked.

In spite of Liebig's shortcomings, Woehler remained his
friend to his death. Woehler knew his friend and made allow-
ances for his fits of temper. "He who does not know him,'* said
Woehler, "would hardly realize that at bottom he is one of the
most good-natured and best fellows in the world."

Woehler, in his youth, had received an excellent education
in the fine arts as well as in the sciences. He loved music, was
encouraged in his attempts at oil painting by Christian Mor-
genstern, the landscape painter, and he made a more than
superficial study of the German poets Often his letters and
parts of his lectures took on the nature of poetry. In one of
his letters to Liebig from Italy we find, "On the highest sum-
mit of the Blue Mountain stands the palace of Tiberius, in
whose shade I ate splendid grapes and figs while two brown-
faced girls, the guides of our horses, danced the Tarantella to
the sound of the tambourine."

Woehler built up a famous laboratory at Gottingen. It was
among the first of the great teaching laboratories of the world.
His fame as chemist and teacher spread over Europe. From
every country students flocked to him and his laboratory be-
came a veritable hive, busy day and night. From the United
States came James Curtis Booth, his first American student,
and also Frank F. Jewett of Oberlm College, who brought back
the story of his teacher's discovery and isolation of that ex-
tremely light, silvery metal, aluminum. Jewett was fond of
talking to his classes of this strange metal which no one had
as yet been able to obtain cheaply, in spite of its great abun-
dance in the rocks of the earth. One day as he spoke of the
fortune that awaited the man who would solve the problem of
a simple method of aluminum extraction, one of his students
nudged the ribs of his young classmate, Charles Martin Hall,
"I am going after that metal" said Hall, and on February 23,
1886 he handed Jewett a pellet of the shiny metal. Hall's
process was patented that year. This was the beginning of the
huge aluminum industry of America, producers of more than
a million tons of aluminum a year.

Woehler's kindly disposition endeared him to another young
American student, Edgar Fahs Smith of the University of

118 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Pennsylvania. Woehler, black skullcap on his head, would sit
for hours on a stool helping a beginner over some difficulty.
The Geheimrat once noticed Smith emptying residues of his
flasks in the dram outside the laboratory. "Recover your resi-
dues so that every thing of value will be saved/' Woehler
advised him, and together they outlined a method of recovery.
When Smith had purified the residues, Woehler sent him to
his friend, an apothecary, who bought them, thus saving the
American his original expenses.

When Smith was ready for the final examinations for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry, he presented
himself appropriately attired in dress suit and white gloves.
Near the end of the examination Woehler, who was then old
and somewhat feeble, straightened himself in his chair and
asked his question. "Herr Candidate, will you tell me how you
would separate the platinum metals from each other?" Smith
acted somewhat confused, picked at the ends of his white
gloves, and then, somewhat haltingly began to repeat the
twelve pages of Woehler's treatise dealing with this subject.
The Geheimrat, before the American had completed the an-
swer, thanked him profusely and complimented him on his
knowledge of the subject. The examination in chemistry was
over. The next day, following the usual custom, Smith made
a formal call on each of the professors. Woehler complimented
him again, saying that his answer at the examination was not
only correct but expressed in perfect language. Then Smith
confessed that the day before another candidate had tipped
him off, and that he had memorized the twelve pages dealing
with the separation of the platinum metals as found in his
book on Mineral Analysis. "Woehler took it as a great joke
and laughed heartily."

In the meantime organic chemistry was making prodigious
strides, Marcellin Berthelot, master synthetic chemist of France,
went to the ant and learned its secret. He prepared formic
acid, the liquid which is responsible for the sting of the insect.
Kolbe, crusading student of Woehler, prepared the acid of
vinegar without the use of sweet cider or the mother-of-vinegar
bacteria. William Perkin, washing bottles in the laboratory of
Hofenann in London, mixed at random the contents of two
flasks and discovered a method of synthesizing mauve the first
of a long series of coal-tar dyes which rival the colors of nature.
Then Kekule of Darmstadt, falling asleep in front of his fire
in Ghent, dreamed of wriggling snakes, and woke up like a
iasa of lightning with the solution of a knotty problem. He had

WOEHLER 119

discovered the structure of benzene parent substance of thou-
sands of important compounds. Next, his pmpil, Adolf von
Baeyer, working for fifteen years on indigo, finally discovered
its formula and made possible the manufacture of synthetic
indigo fifteen years later by the Badische Company which had
spent millions of dollars in research on this problem. This
achievement rang the death knell of the prosperous indigo-
growing industry of India, which soon went the way of its
predecessor, the cultivation of woad. Had not Becher com-
plained, "We give our gold to the Dutch for the trumpery
color indigo and let the cultivation of woad in Thuringia go
to perish."

Strangely enough, both Woehier and Liebig deserted this
fruitful field of their original triumphs. Liebig turned to the
chemistry of agriculture. In 1840 he tested his new theory of
soil fertility on a barren piece of land near Giessen. The scep-
tics laughed but he kept feeding the soil with nothing but
mineral fertilizers until he had turned it into as fertile a spot
as could be found in all Germany. With one blow he had over-
turned the firmly rooted belief that plants can thrive only on
manure or other organic matter in the soil. He had proved
that the vegetable world could construct its organic material
from the carbon dioxide and nitrogen of the air and the water
of the ground. Others followed this pioneer work* Sir John
Lawes at Rothamsted, England, started an experimental station
which became the most famous of its kind in the world.

Yet Liebig was not happy in the change. "I feel/* he wrote,
"as though I were a deserter, a renegade who has forsaken his
religion. I have left the highway of science and my endeavors
to be of some use to physiology and agriculture are like roll-
ing the stones of Sisyphus it always falls back on my head,
and I sometimes despair of being able to make the ground
firm."

Woehier, too, had forsaken his first love almost in its infancy.
"Organic chemistry nowadays almost drives me mad," he com-
plained. "To me it appears like a primeval tropical forest full
of the most remarkable things, a dreadful endless jungle into
which one does not dare enter, for there seems no way out."
He went to his minerals again and to the study of metals,
In Sweden he had watched the master Berzelius at work on his
researches of silicon, selenium and zirconium three new ele-
ments. Woehier had learned much during his short stay and,
a year before his immortal synthesis of urea, had already ac-
complished a research of the first order the isolation of the

120 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

metal, aluminum, in pure form. This same problem had de-
feated the genius of Davy. By treating a solid salt of aluminum
with the intensely active potassium, Woehler was able to tear
the metal away from its union and obtain it free as a white
powder. But this sample of aluminum was only a laboratory
curiosity it cost a hundred and fifty dollars a pound.

Woehler's span of life covered the troubled days of the
Napoleonic and Franco-Prussian Wars As a lad he had seen
the triumphal entry of the hated Napoleon into Frankfort.
Sixty years later he heard of the capture of the French flags
by the Prussians. Immediately, from Wiesbaden, where as a
youth he had searched for urns and lamps in the ancient camps
of the Romans, he wrote to Liebig, "The eagles of the captured
French flags really consist of gilded aluminum, a metal that
was first produced in Berlin in 1827 Such is fate " He modestly
refrained from mentioning the part he played in the discovery
of this metal.

Woehler isolated two other new elements, beryllium and
yttrium, and because of illness which prevented an accurate
analysis just missed discovering a fourth metal. This metal,
vanadium, was soon isolated by N. G. Sefstrom Woehler had
sent a specimen of a lead ore containing this unknown metal
to his friend Berzelius, and marked it with an interrogation
point. Berzelius analyzed the mineral and replied with the fol-
lowing story: "In the remote regions of the north there dwells
the Goddess Vanadis, beautiful and lovely. One day there was
a knock at her door. The goddess was weary and thought she
would wait to see if the knock would be repeated, but there was
no repetition. The goddess ran to the window to look at the
retreating figure. *Ah/ she said to herself, 'it is that fellow
Woehler/ A short time afterward there was another knock, but
this time so persistent and energetic that the goddess went
herself to open it. It was Sefstrorn, and thus it was that he
discovered vanadium Your specimen is, in fact, oxide of vana-
dium. But/' continued Berzehus, "the chemist who has in-
vented a way for the artificial production of an organic body
can well afford to forego all claims to the discovery of a new
metal, for it would be possible to discover ten unknown ele-
ments with the expenditure of so much genius/*

The march of organic chemistry still went on after Woehler
was dead. He lived long enough to see some of the miracles
that succeeded the synthetic production of urea. But mightier
developments followed The story of this advance is like a tale
the Arabian Nights. Emil Fischer, refusing to enter the

WOEHLER 121

lumber business to please his father, turns to the chemical lab-
oratory and builds up the most complex organic compounds,
link to link and chain upon chain until he synthesizes complex
products like C^Hi^OwNJa, and polypeptides which resemble
the natural peptones and albumins. No architect could work
with greater precision. And when his father dies at the age of
ninety-five, Fischer utters the regret "that he did not live to
see his impractical son receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry."
Forty years later, in 1947, the American chemist, Robert B.
Woodward of Harvard University, synthesized a huge, fibrous
proteinlike molecule. He built up a chain of amino acid units
in peptide fashion until he obtained a molecule containing
more than a million atoms.

In another German laboratory, Paul Ehrlich jabs mice, rab-
bits and guinea pigs with injections of strange chemical com-
pounds which he keeps changing and discarding by the dozens.
He is searching for a differential poison one which is more
poisonous to the microorganism than to its host. Then one
glorious morning, after six hundred and five trials, his syn-
thetic drug dihydroxy diamino arseno benzene dihydrochlo-
ride was its chemical name kills the corkscrew trypanosomes,
the deadly microbes that caused syphilis. Six-o-six, this first real
specific against a virulent disease, was a product of synthetic
chemistry.

Equally amazing contributions to chemotherapy are the anti-
biotics such as penicillin, streptomycin, and the sulfa drugs
such as sulfanilamide now used successfully against dangerous
streptococci infections, pneumonia, meningitis and other dis-
eases. Some of them have been synthesized.

By 1931 the first commercially successful rubber substitute,
neoprene, was manufactured by DuPont. Among other rubber
substitutes later developed in this country were butyl, Buna-N,
and GR-S rubber made both from alcohol and from petroleum.
Soon after the entry of the United States into World War II,
our manufacture of synthetic rubber was stepped up to almost
a millions tons a year.

The list of achievements is still incomplete. Chemists have
not feared to join battle with any product of the living organ-
ism. They have studied the active internal secretions of the
ductless glands of the body. These secretions, called hormones
(from the Greek to arouse or excite), enter the blood stream
in extremely minute amounts as catalysts, and control growth,
intelligence and other functions of the nervous system. The
first of these hormones to be synthesized (Stolz, 1906) was

122 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

epinephrine (adrenalin), the active ingredient of two tiny cap-
sules found one on top of each kidney. The hormone of these
suprarenal tissues was isolated as early as 1900 by the Ameri-
can, John Jacob Abel, and his Japanese co-worker, Takamine.
It is the hormone of the he-man and the coward, for the ab-
sence or overactivity of the suprarenal bodies has a tremendous
influence on human action During an emotional crisis the
adrenals become very active and produce great strength. Their
overactivity in the female accounts for the deep-voiced, bearded
lady of the circus.

In 1915 Edward C. Kendall of the Mayo Foundation isolated
the hormone of the thyroid gland, thyroxine. This needle-
shaped crystal containing 65% iodine is found to the extent
of less than a quarter of a grain in the whole body, and in-
fluences the rate of oxidation in the body. When the thyroid
is overactive it produces either a symmetrical giant or a gorilla
type of man. When underdeveloped, it results in a misshapen
dwarf with the intelligence of an idiot. In 1927, C. R Har-
ington of England succeeded in synthesizing this important
hormone from coal-tar products It was a prodigious task. This
drug, beta - tetra - iodo - hydroxy - phenoxy - phenyl - alpha - amino -
propionic acid, became a blessing to mankind.

The isolation of insulin by Frederick G. Banting, who was
killed in an airplane accident while in the service of Great
Britain in 1941, proved a boon to diabetics. Other hormones
were isolated in pure form estrogen, hormone of the female
sex gland, testosterone, hormone of the male sex gland, cortin
from the outer layer of the adrenal gland, and many more.
Some of these have been synthesized.

The discovery, isolation and final synthesis of a whole group
of new compounds essential to health in a balanced diet was
another triumph of the chemist. These compounds called vita-
mins A, B 2 or G, C, D, E, K., and several others closely asso-
ciated with vitamin Bu, such as niactn, pantothenic acid, inosi-
tpl f para-ammo benzole acid, chohne, pyridoxine (.Be), biotin
(H), fohc acid and Bn } prevent deficiency diseases such as
xerophthalmia (an eye disease), beriberi, pellagra, scurvy, ric-
kets, sterility (in rats), excessive bleeding and so forth. Profes-
sors Elmer V. McCollum and Herbert M. Evans, and Joseph
Goldberger were among the early American pioneers in this
field of research. Drugs, anaesthetics, and medicines like pro-
caine, cyclopropane, dramamme, ephedrine, aspirin, phenace-
tin, urotropin, veronal, quinine, and strychnine have been
synthesized to alleviate the pains of mankind. The essential

WOEHLER 123

oils of the synthetic chemist rival the odors of Arabia and
Persia, while his colors outshine the rainbow. Scores of new
synthetic plastics are eating into the metal market.

The mind fairly reels at the thought of the possibilities of
this new branch of chemistry. Chemistry, once the handmaid,
is now the mistress of medicine, for life is largely a matter of
chemistry. Our bodies are organic chemical factories. Chemical
experiments are today controlling the growth of cells, the unit
of life, outside the living body. On January 17, 1912, Alexis
Carrel, a Nobel Prize winner in medicine, took several minute
fragments from the heart of a chick embryo and cultivated
them. "The bits of tissue went on pulsating and surrounded
themselves with connective tissue cells." But in a few days
this ceased and "degeneration was imminent/' Then Carrel,
by carefully regulating the chemical composition of the medium
in which the cells were placed, was able to get the heart tissue
pulsating again, and "today many experiments are made with
the pure strain descended from the tiny fragment of pulsating
tissue" that he possessed in 1912. He succeeded in keeping
alive minute portions of the original strain for more than
thirty years.

Here we are on the very rim of life. Wonders succeed won-
ders. Carrel found that a colony of cells, originally a pinhead
in volume, would produce in twenty days a mass of tissue equal
to a gram. After sixty days the volume of living tissue would
be as large as a cubic yard. Tissues growing at this rate for six-
teen years would reach a volume greater than that of the entire
solar system, millions of miles in diameter. This would be stag-
gering, but many factors prevent this unlimited proliferation,
"Although the body is composed of elements which are poten-
tially immortal," said Carrel, "it is and will always be subject
to senility and death. In spite of the fact that the higher ani-
mals will never reach immortality, there is some hope that the
duration of life may be artificially increased. The solution of
this problem rests on the -future progress of cell physiology and
the chemistry of nutrition"

The belief in the old vital force which Woehler destroyed is
still dead, but in its place there remains another vital power
more puzzling than ever. Warburg in Germany, A. V. Hill in
England, and L. Henderson and Van Slyke in America worked
to unravel the mysterious force which controls the birth, growth
and development of living forms. Eugenio Rignano, an Italian
philosopher, had hopes that this biotic or vitalistic nervous
energy would some day be discovered. Sir Oliver Lodge once

124 CRUCIB STORY OF CHEMISTRY

told an audience at Oxford University that "it is sometimes
said by students of organic chemistry that if we could contrive
in the laboratory to continue the manufacture of organic com-
pounds until we had a mass of protoplasm, and were able to
subject it to suitable pressure, they would expect that artificial
protoplasm to exhibit vitality and manifest one or another
form of life." This is no challenge to the conception of God,
as some fundamentalists maintain. It is difficult to believe,
however, that man will soon be able to produce that entelechy
or expanding vital impulse which can breathe the breath of life
into the most complex chemical compound he makes Man is
probably more than a chemical concatenation of a lump of
coal, a whiff of air and a beaker of salt solutions.

Even the achievement of synthetic life would not have fright-
ened the philosopher Emerson. For to him, scientific triumph
was not the death but the birth of further mystery. "I do not
know that I should feel threatened or insulted if a chemist
should take this protoplasm or mix his hydrogen, oxygen and
carbon, and make an animalcule incontestably swimming and
jumping before my eyes. I should only feel that it indicated
that the day had arrived when the human race might be trusted
with a new degree of power and its immense responsibility;
for these steps are not solitary or local, but only a hint of an
advanced frontier suggested by an advancing race behind it"

Woehler died in his eighty-third year, following an illness
of only three days. After a simple funeral he was buried in
Gottmgen, the city of his life work. In accordance with his wish
only a modest legend was carved on his tombstone-Friedrich
Woehler; Born July 31, 1800; Died Sept. 23, 1882. At Downs,
five months before, there passed away another pioneer of
science, Charles Darwin, the man who recreated life out of the
rocks and fossils of the earth even as Woehler created a new
world of compounds out of the same inanimate stones, and
with them showed the way to the modern Elixirs of Life.

IX

MENDELEEFF

SIBERIA BREEDS A PROPHET

OUT of Russia came the patriarchal voice of a prophet of
chemistry. "There is an element as yet undiscovered.
I have named it eka-aluminum. By properties similar to those
of the metal aluminum you shall identify it. Seek it, and it will
be found." Startling as was this prophecy, the sage of Russia
was not through. He predicted another element resembling the
element boron. He was even bold enough to state its atomic
weight. And before that voice was stilled, it foretold the dis-
covery of a third element whose physical and chemical prop-
erties were thoroughly described. No man, not even the Russian
himself, had beheld these unknown substances.

This was the year 1869. The age of miracles was long past.
Yet here was a distinguished scientist, holding a chair of chem-
istry at a famous university, covering himself with the mantle
of the prophets of old. Had he gathered this information from
inside the crystal glass of some sorcerer? Perhaps, like the seer
of ancient times, he had gone to the top of a mountain to bring
down the tablets of these new elements. But this oracle dis-
dained the robes of a priest. Rather did he announce his pre-
dictions from the stillness of his chemical laboratory, where
midst the smoke, not of a burning bush, but of the fire of
his furnace, he had seen visions of a great generalization in
chemistry.

Chemistry had already been the object of prophecy. When
Lavoisier heated some tin in a sealed flask and found it to
change in appearance and weight, he saw clearly a new truth,
and foretold other changes. Lockyer a year before had looked
through a new instrument the spectroscope devised by Bunsen
and Kirchhof. Through this spectroscope he had gazed at the
bright colored lines of a new element ninety-three million miles
away. Since it was present in the photosphere of the sun he
called it helium and predicted its existence on our earth*
Twenty-one years later, William Hillebrand of the United
States Geological Survey, came across this gas in the rare min-
eral cleveite.

But the predictions of the Russian were more astounding.
He had made no direct experiments. He had come to his con-

125

126 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

elusions seemingly out of thin air. There had gradually been
born in the fertile mind of this man the germ of a great truth.
It was a fantastic seed but it germinated with surprising ra-
pidity. When the flower was mature, he ventured to startle the
world with its beauty.

In 1884 Sir William Ramsay had come to London to attend
a dinner given in honor of William Perkin, the discoverer of
the dye mauve. "I was very early at the dinner/' Ramsay re-
called, "and was putting off time looking at the names of
people to be present, when a peculiar foreigner, every hair of
whose head acted in independence of every other, came up
bowing. I said, 'We are to have a good attendance, I think?'
He said, 'I do not spik English ' I said, "Vielleicht sprechen sie
Deutsch?' He replied, *Ja em wenig Ich bin Mendele"eff ' Well,
we had twenty minutes or so before anyone else turned up and
we talked our mutual subject fairly out. He is a nice sort of
fellow but his German is not perfect. He said he was raised
in East Siberia and knew no Russian until he was seventeen
years old. I suppose he is a Kalmuck or one of those outlandish
creatures."

This "outlandish creature" was Mendeleeff, the Russian pro-
phet to whom the world listened. Men went in search of the
missing elements he described. In the bowels of the earth, in
the flue dust of factories, in the waters of the oceans, and in
every conceivable corner they hunted. Summers and winters
rolled by while Mendele*eff kept preaching the truth of his
visions. Then, in 1875, the first of the new elements he foretold
was discovered. In a zinc ore mined in the Pyrenees, Lecoq
de Boisbaudran came upon the hidden eka-aluminum. This
Frenchman analyzed and reanalyzed the mineral and studied
the new element in every possible way to make sure there was
no error. MendeMeff must indeed be a prophet! For here was
a metal exactly similar to his eka-aluminum. It yielded its secret
of two new lines to the spectroscope, it was -easily fusible, it
could form alums, its chloride was volatile. Every one of these
characteristics had been accurately foretold by the Russian.
Lecoq named it gallium after the ancient name of his native
country.

But there were many who disbelieved. "This is one of those
strange guesses which by the law of averages must come true,"
they argued. Silly to believe that new elements could be pre-
dicted with such accuracy! One might as well predict the birth
of a new star in the heavens. Had not Lavoisier, the father of
chemistry, declared that "all that can be said upon the nature

MENDELEEFF 127

and number of the elements is confined to discussions entirely
of a metaphysical nature? The subject only furnishes us with
indefinite problems."

But then came the news that Winkler, in Germany, had
stumbled over another new element, which matched the eka-
silicon of Mendele'efL The German had followed the clue of
the Russian. He was looking for a dirty gray element with an
atomic weight of about 72, a density of 5.5, an element which
was slightly acted upon by acids. From the silver ore, argyro-
dite, he isolated a grayish white substance with atomic weight
of 72.3 and a density of 5.5. He heated it in air and found its
oxide to be exactly as heavy as had been predicted. He syn-
thesized its ethide and found it to boil at exactly the tempera-
ture that Mendele*eff had prefigured. There was not a scintilla
of doubt about the fulfilment of Mendele'efFs second prophecy.
The spectroscope added unequivocal testimony. Winkler an-
nounced the new element under the name of germanium in
honor of his fatherland. The sceptics were dumbfounded. Per-
haps after all the Russian was no charlatan!

Two years later the world was completely convinced. Out
of Scandinavia came the report that Nilson had isolated eka-
boron. Picking up the scent of the missing element in the ore of
euxenite, Nilson had tracked it down until the naked element,
exhibiting every property foreshadowed for it, lay before him
in his evaporating dish The data were conclusive. The whole
world of science came knocking at the door of the Russian in
St. Petersburg.

Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendele"eff came of a family of heroic
pioneers. More than a century before his birth, Peter the Great
had started to westernize Russia. Upon a marsh of pestilence
he reared a mighty city which was to be Russia's window to
the West. For three-quarters of a century Russia's intellectual
march eastward continued, until in 1787 in Tobolsk, Siberia,
the grandfather of Dmitri opened up the first printing press,
and with the spirit of a pioneer published the first newspaper
in Siberia, the Irtysch. In this desolate spot, settled two cen-
turies before by the Cossacks, Dmitri was born on February 7,
1834. He was the last of a family of seventeen children.

Misfortune overtook his family. His father, director of the
local high school, became blind, and soon after died of con-
sumption. His mother, Maria Korniloff, a Tartar beauty, un-
able to support her large family on a pension of five hundred
dollars a year, reopened a glass factory which her family was
the first to establish in Siberia. Tobolsk at this time was an

128 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

administrative center to which Russian political exiles were
taken. From one of these prisoners of the revolt of 1825, a
"Decembrist" who married his sister, Dmitri learned the rudi-
ments of natural science. When fire destroyed the glass factory,
little Dmitri, pet of his aged mother she was already fifty-seven
was taken to Moscow in the hope that he might be admitted
to the University. Official red tape prevented this. Determined
that her son should receive a good scientific education, his
mother undertook to move to St. Petersburg, where he finally
gained admittance to the Science Department of the Peda-
gogical Institute, a school for the training of high school
teachers. Here he specialized in mathematics, physics and
chemistry. The classics were distasteful to this blue-eyed boy.
Years later, when he took a hand in the solution of Russia's
educational problems, he wrote, "We could live at the present
time without a Plato, but a double number of Newtons is re-
quired to discover the secrets of nature, and to bring life into
harmony with its laws "

Mendeleff worked diligently at his studies and graduated at
the head of his class. Never very robust during these early
years, his health gradually weakened, and the news of his
mother's death completely unnerved him. He had come to her
as she lay on her death bed. She spoke to him of his future:
"Refrain from illusions, insist on work and not on words. Pa-
tiently search divine and scientific truth." Mendele'eff never
forgot those words. Even as he dreamed, he always felt the
solid earth beneath his feet.

His physician gave him six months to live. To regain his
health, he was ordered to seek a warmer climate. He went to
the south of Russia and obtained a position as science master
at Simferopol in the Crimea. When the Crimean War broke
out he left for Odessa, and at the age of twenty-two he was
back in St. Petersburg as a privat-docent. An appointment as
privat-docent meant nothing more than permission to teach,
and brought no stipend save a part of the fees paid by the
students who attended the lectures* Within a few years he
asked and was granted permission from the Minister of Public
Instruction to study in France and Germany. There was no
opportunity in Russia for advanced work in science. At Paris
he worked in the laboratory of Henri Regnault and, for an-
other year, at Heidelberg in a small private laboratory built
out of his meager means. Here he met Bunsen and Kirchhof
from whom he learned the use of the spectroscope, and to-
gether with Kopp attended the Congress of Karlsruhe, listening

MENDELEEEF 129

to the great battle over the molecules of Avogadro. Cannizarro's
atomic weights were to do valiant service for him in the years
to come. Mendele*efFs attendance at this historic meeting ended
his Wander jahre.

The next few years were very busy ones. He married, com-
pleted in sixty days a five-hundred-page textbook on organic
chemistry which earned him the Domidoff Prize, and gained
his doctorate in chemistry for a thesis on The Union of Alcohol
with Water, The versatility of this gifted teacher, chemical
philosopher and accurate experimenter was soon recognized by
the University of St. Petersburg, which appointed him full
professor before he was thirty-two.

Then came the epoch-making year of 1869. Mendel e"eff had
spent twenty years reading, studying and experimenting with
the chemical elements. All these years he had been busy col-
lecting a mass of data from every conceivable source. He had
arranged and rearranged this data in the hope of unfolding a
secret. It was a painstaking task. Thousands of scientists had
worked on the elements in hundreds of laboratories scattered
over the civilized world. Sometimes he had to spend days
searching for missing data to complete his tables The number
of the elements had increased since the ancient artisans fash-
ioned instruments from their gold, silver, copper, iron, mercury,
lead, tin, sulfur and carbon. The alchemists had added six new
elements in their futile search for the seed of gold and the
elixir of life. Basil Valentine, a German physician, in the year
when Columbus was discovering America had rather fancifully
described antimony. In 1530 Georgius Agricola, another Ger-
man, talked about bismuth in his De Re Metallica, a boo!: on
mining which was translated into English for the first time by
Herbert Hoover and his wife in 1912. Paracelsus was the first
to mention the metal zinc to the Western World. Brandt dis-
covered glowing phosphorus in urine, and arsenic and cobalt
were soon added to the list of the elements.

Before the end of the eighteenth century, fourteen more
elements were discovered. In far away Choco, Colombia, a
Spanish naval officer, Don Antonio de Ulloa, had picked up
a heavy nugget while on an astronomical mission, and had
almost discarded it as worthless before the valuable properties
of the metal platinum were recognized. This was in 1735. Then
came lustrous nickel, inflammable hydrogen, inactive nitrogen,
life-giving oxygen, death-dealing chlorine, manganese, used For
burglar-proof safes, tungsten, for incandescent lamps, chro-
mium for stainless steel, molybdenum and titanium, so useful

130 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

in steel alloys, tellurium, zirconium, and uranium, heaviest
of all the elements. The nineteenth century had hardly opened
when Hatchett, an Englishman, discovered columbium (nio-
bium) in a black mineral that had found its way from the
Connecticut Valley to the British Museum. And thus the search
went on, until in 1869 sixty-three different elements had been
isolated and described in the chemical journals of England,
France, Germany and Sweden.

Mendel^eff gathered together all the data, on these sixty-three
chemical elements. He did not miss a single one. He even in-
cluded fluorine whose presence was known, but which had not
yet been isolated because of its tremendous activity. Here was
a list of all the chemical elements, every one of them consisting
of different Daltonian atoms. Their atomic weights, ranging
from 1 (hydrogen) to 238 (uranium), were all dissimilar.
Some, like oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine and nitrogen, were gases.
Others, like mercury and bromine, were liquids under normal
conditions. The rest were solids. There were some very hard
metals like platinum and iridium, and soft metals like sodium
and potassium Lithium was a metal so light that it could float
on water. Osmium, on the other hand, was twenty-two and a
half times as heavy as water. Here was mercury, a metal which
was not a solid at all, but a liquid Copper was red, gold yel-
low, iodine steel gray, phosphorus white, and bromine red.
Some metals, like nickel and chromium, could take a very high
polish; others like lead and aluminum, were duller. Gold, on
exposure to the air, never tarnished, iron rusted very easily,
iodine sublimed and changed into a vapor Some elements
united with one atom of oxygen, others with two, three or four
atoms. A few, like potassium and fluorine, were so active that
it was dangerous to handle them with the unprotected fingers.
Others could remain unchanged for ages. What a maze of vary-
ing, dissimilar, physical characteristics and chemical propertiesl

Could some order be found in this body of diverse atoms?
Was there any connection between these elements?^ Could some
system of evolution or development be traced among them,
such as Darwin, ten years before, had found among the multi-
form varieties of organic life? Mendele"eff wondered. The prob-
lem haunted his dreams. Constantly his mind reverted to this
puzzling question.

Mendele"eff was a dreamer and a philosopher He was going
to find the key to this heterogeneous collection of data. Perhaps
nature had a simple secret to unfold. And while he believed it
to be "the glory of God to conceal a thing," he was firmly

MENDELEEFF 151

convinced that it was "the honor of kings to search it out."
He arranged all the elements in the order of increasing
atomic weights, starting with the lightest, hydrogen, and com-
pleting his table with uranium, the heaviest. He saw no par-
ticular value in arranging the elements in this way; it had
been done before. Unknown to Mendele"eff, an Englishman,
John Newlands, had three years previously read, before the
English Chemical Society at Burlington House, a paper on the
arrangement of the elements Newlands had noticed that each
succeeding eighth element in his list showed properties similar
to the first element. This seemed strange. He compared the
table of the elements to the keyboard of a piano with its
eighty-eight notes divided into periods or octaves of eight.
"The members of the same group elements," he said, "stand
to each other in the same relation as the extremities of one
or more octaves in music." The members of the learned society
of London laughed at his Law of Octaves Professor Foster
ironically inquired if he had ever examined the elements ac-
cording to their initial letters. No wonder think of compar-
ing the chemical elements to the keyboard of a piano! One
might as well compare the sizzling of sodium as it skims over
water to the music of the heavenly spheres. "Too fantastic,"
they agreed, and J. A. R. Newlands almost went down to
oblivion.

Mendele*eff was clear-visioned enough not to fall into such
a pit. He took sixty-three cards and placed on them the names
and properties of the elements These cards he pinned on the
walls of his laboratory. Then he carefully re-examined the
data. He sorted out the similar elements and pinned their
cards together again on the walls. A striking relationship was
thus made clear.

Mendele"eff now arranged the elements into seven groups,
starting with lithium (at. wt. 7), and followed by beryllium
(at. wt. 9), boron (11), carbon (12), nitrogen (14), oxygen
(16) and fluorine (19) The next element in the order of in-
creasing atomic weight was sodium (23). This element resem-
bled lithium very closely in both physical and chemical
properties. He therefore placed it below lithium in his table.
After placing five more elements he came to chlorine, which
had properties very similar to fluorine, under which it miracu-
lously fell in his list. In this way he continued to arrange the
remainder of the elements. When his list was completed he
noticed a most remarkable order. How beautifully the elements
fitted into their places! The very active metals lithium, sodium,

132 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

potassium, rubidium and caesium fell into one group (No. 1).
The extremely active nonmetals fluorine, chlorine, bromine
and Iodine all appeared in the seventh group.

Mendele"eff had discovered that the properties of the ele-
ments "were periodic functions of their atomic weights/' that
is, their properties repeated themselves periodically after
each seven elements. What a simple law he had discovered!
But here was another astonishing fact. All the elements in
Group I united with oxygen two atoms to one. All the atoms
of the second group united with oxygen atom for atom. The
elements in Group III joined with oxygen two atoms to three.
Similar uniformities prevailed in the remaining groups of
elements What in the realm of nature could be more simple?
To know the properties of one element of a certain group was
to know, in a general way, the properties of all the elements
in that group. What a saving of time and effort for his
chemistry students!

Could his table be nothing but a strange coincidence? Men-
del^eff wondered. He studied the properties of even the rarest
of the elements. He re-searched the chemical literature lest he
had, in the ardor of his work, misplaced an element to fit in
with his beautiful edifice. Yes, here was a mistake! He had
misplaced iodine, whose atomic weight was recorded as 127,
and tellurium, 128, to agree with his scheme of things. Men-
dele'eff looked at his Periodic Table of the Elements and saw
that it was good. With the courage of a prophet he made bold
to say that the atomic weight of tellurium was wrong; that it
must be between 123 and 126 and not 128, as its discoverer
had determined. Here was downright heresy, but Dmitri was
not afraid to buck the established order of things. For the
present, he placed the element tellurium in its proper position,
but with its false atomic weight. Years later his action was
upheld, for further chemical discoveries proved his position of
tellurium to be correct This was one of the most magnificent
prognostications in chemical history.

Perhaps Mendele'efFs table was now free from flaws. Again
he examined it, and once more he detected an apparent contra-
diction. Here was gold with the accepted atomic weight of
196.2 placed in a space which rightfully belonged to platinum,
whose established atomic weight was 196 7. The faultfinders
got busy. They pointed out this discrepancy with scorn. Men-
dele'eff made brave enough to claim that the figures of the
analysts, and not his table, were inaccurate. He told them to
wait He would be vindicated. And again the balance of the

MENDELEEFF 133

chemist came to the aid of the philosopher, for the then-
accepted weights were wrong and Mendele'eff was again right.
Gold had an atomic weight greater than platinum. This table
of the queer Russian was almost uncanny in its accuracy!

Mendele"eff was still to strike his greatest bolt Here were
places in his table which were vacant. Were they always to
remain empty or had the efforts of man failed as yet to uncover
some missing elements which belonged in these spaces? A less
intrepid person would have shrunk from the conclusion that
this Russian drew Not this Tartar, who would not cut his hair
even to please his Majesty, Czar Alexander III. He was con-
vinced of the truth of his great generalization, and did not
fear the blind, chemical sceptics.

Here in Group III was a gap between calcium and titanium.
Since it occurred under boron, the missing element must re-
semble boron. This was his eka-boron which he predicted.
There was another gap in the same group under aluminum.
This element must resemble aluminum, so he called it eka-
aluminum. And finally he found another vacant space between
arsenic and eka-aluminum, which appeared in the fourth
group. Since its position was below the element silicon, he
called it eka-silicon. Thus he predicted three undiscovered
elements and left it to his chemical contemporaries to verify
his prophecies. Not such remarkable guesses after all at least
not to the genius Mendel^eff!

In 1869 Mendel<eff, before the Russian Chemical Society,
presented his paper On the Relation of the Properties to the
Atomic Weights of the Elements. In a vivid style he told them
of his epoch-making conclusions. The whole scientific world
was overwhelmed. His great discovery, however, had not sprung
forth overnight full grown. The germ of this important law
had begun to develop years before. Mendele"eff admitted that
"the law was the direct outcome of the stock of generalizations
of established facts which had accumulated by the end of the
decade 1860-1870." De Chancourtois in France, Strecher in
Germany, Newlands in England, and Cooke in America had
noticed similarities among the properties of certain elements.
But no better example could be cited of how two men, work-
ing independently in different countries, can arrive at the same
generalization, than the case of Lothar Meyer, who conceived
the Periodic Law at almost the same time as Mendeleff. In
1870 there appeared in Liebigs Annalen a table of the elements
by Lothar Meyer which was almost identical with that of the
Russian. The time was ripe for this great law. Some wanted

134 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

the boldness or the genius necessary "to place the whole ques-
tion at such a height that its reflection on the facts could be
clearly seen " This was the statement of Mendele'eff himself.
Enough elements had been discovered and studied to make
possible the arrangement of a table such as Mendele"eff had
prepared. Had Dmitri been born a generation before, he could
never, in 1840, have enunciated the Periodic Law.

"The Periodic Law has given to chemistry that prophetic
power long regarded as the peculiar dignity of the sister
science, astronomy/' So wrote the American scientist Bolton.
Mendele'eff had made places for more than sixty-three elements
in his Table. Three more he had predicted. What of the other
missing building blocks of the universe? Twenty-five years after
the publication of Mendele"eff's Table, two Englishmen, follow-
ing a clue of Cavendish, came upon a new group of elements
of which even the Russian had never dreamed. These elements
constituted a queer company the Zero Group as it was later
named. Its members, seven in number, are the most unsociable
of all the elements. Even with that ideal mixer, potassium, they
will not unite. Fluorine, most violent of all the nonmetals can-
not shake these hermit elements out of their inertness. Moissan
tried sparking them with fluorine but failed to make them com-
bine. Besides, they are all gases, invisible and odorless. Small
wonder they had remained so long hidden.

True, the first of these noble gases, as they were called, had
been observed in the sun's chromosphere during a solar eclipse
in August, 1868, but as nothing was known about it except its
orange yellow spectral line, Mendele'eff did not even include it
in his table. Later, Hillebrand described a gas expelled from
cleveite. He knew enough about it to state that it differed from
nitrogen but failed to detect its real nature. Then Ramsay,
obtaining a sample of the same mineral, bottled the gas ex-
pelled from it in a vacuum tube, sparked it and detected the
spectral line of helium. The following year Kayser announced
the presence of this gas in very minute amounts, one part in
185,000, in the earth's atmosphere.

The story of the discovery and isolation of these gases from
the air is one of the most amazing examples of precise and
painstaking researches in the whole history of science. Ramsay
had been casually introduced to chemistry while convalescing
from an injury received in a football game. He had picked up
a textbook in chemistry and turned to the description of the
manufacture of gunpowder. This was his first lesson in chem-
istry. Raylejgh, his co-worker, had been urged to enter either

MENDELEEFF 155

the ministry or politics, and when he claimed that he owed a
duty to science, was told his action was a lapse from the straight
and narrow path. Such were the initiations of these two Eng-
lishmen into the science which brought them undying fame.
They worked with gases so small m volume that it is difficult
to understand how they could have studied them Rayleigh,
in 1894, wrote to Lady Frances Balfour: "The new gas has
been leading me a life I had only about a quarter of a thimble-
ful. I now have a more decent quantity but it has cost about a
thousand times its weight in gold. It has not yet been chris-
tened. One pundit suggested 'aeron/ but when I have tried the
effect privately, the answer has usually been, 'When may we
expect Moses?' " It was finally christened argon, and if not
Moses, there came other close relatives: neon, krypton, xenon
and finally radon. These gases were isolated by Ramsay and
Travers from one hundred and twenty tons of air which had
been liquefied. William Ramsay used a micro-balance which
could detect a difference in weight of one fourteen-trillionth
of an ounce. He worked with a millionth of a gram of invisible,
gaseous radon the size of a tenth of a pin's head.

Besides these six Zero Group elements, some of which are
doing effective work in argon and neon incandescent lamps, in
helium-filled dirigibles, in electric signs, and in replacing the
nitrogen in compressed air to prevent the "bends" among
caisson workers, seventeen other elements were unearthed. So
that, a year after Mendel e"eff died in 1907, eighty-six elements
were listed in the Periodic Table, a fourfold increase since the
days of Lavoisier.

Mendel ^eff, besides being a natural philosopher in the widest
sense of the term, was also a social reformer. He was aware
of the brutality and tyranny of Czarist Russia He had learned
his first lessons from the persecuted exiles in frozen Tobolsk.
As he travelled about Russia, he went third class, and engaged
in intimate conversation with the peasants and small trades-
people in the trains. They hated the remorseless oppression
and espionage of the government. Mendele"eff was not blind
to the abuses of Russian officialdom, nor did he fear to point
them out. He was often vehement in his denunciations. This
was a dangerous procedure in those days. But the government
needed Mendele"eff, and his radical utterances were always
mildly tinged with due respect for law and order. MendeleS
was shrewd enough not to make a frontal attack on the govern-
ment. He would bide his time and wait for an opportune mo-
ment when his complaints could not easily be ignored. On

156 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

more than one occasion when this scientific genius showed signs
of political eruption, he was hastily sent away on some govern-
ment mission. Far from the centers of unrest he was much
safer and of greater value to the officials.

In 1876, Mendele'eff was commissioned by the government
of Alexander II to visit the oil fields of Pennsylvania in distant
America. These were the early days of the petroleum industry.
In 1859, Colonel Edwin L Drake and his partner "Uncle Billy"
Smith had gone to Titusville, Pennsylvania, to drive a well
sixty-nine feet deepthe first to produce oil on a commercial
scale. Mendele^eff had already been of invaluable service to
Russia by making a very careful study of her extensive oil
fields of Baku. Here, in the Caucasus, from a gap in the rock,
burned the "everlasting flame" which Marco Polo had de-
scribed centuries back. Baku was the most prolific single oil
district in the world and, from earliest times, people had
burned its oil which they had dipped from its springs. Mende-
le'eff developed an ingenious theory to explain the origin of
these oil deposits. He refused to accept the prevalent idea
that oil was the result of the decomposition of organic material
in the earth, and postulated that energy-bearing petroleum was
formed by the interaction of water and metallic carbides found
in the interior of the earth.

On his return from America, Mendele'eff was again sent to
study the naphtha springs in the south of Russia. He did not
confine his work to the gathering of statistics and the enuncia-
tion of theories. He developed in his own laboratory a new
method for the commercial distillation of these products and
saved Russia vast sums of money. He studied the coal region
on the banks and basin of the Donetz River and opened it to
the world. He was an active propagandist for Russia's indus-
trial development and expansion, and was called upon to help
frame a protective tariff for his country.

This was a period of intense social and political unrest in
Russia. Alexander II had attempted to settle the land question
of his twenty-three million serfs. He tried further to ameliorate
conditions by reforming the judicial system, relaxing the cen-
sorship of the press, and developing educational facilities. The
young students in the universities presented a petition for a
change in certain educational practices Suddenly an insurrec-
tion against the Russian government broke out in Poland. The
reactionary forces again gained control. Russia was in no mood
for radical changes; the requests of the students were per-
emptorily turned down. Mendele'eff stepped in and presented

MENDELEEFF 137

another of their petitions to the officials of the government.
He was bluntly told to go back to his laboratory and stop med-
dling in the affairs of the state. Proud and sensitive, Mendele'eff
was insulted and resigned from the University. Prince Kropot-
kin, a Russian anarchist of royal blood, was one of his famous
students. "I am not afraid," Mendele'eff had declared, "of the
admission of foreign, even of socialistic ideas into Russia,
because I have faith in the Russian people who have already
got rid of the Tartar domination and the feudal system/' He
did not change his views even after the Czar, in 1881, was
horribly mangled by a bomb thrown into his carriage.

Mendele'eff had made many enemies by his espousal of
liberal movements. In 1880, the St. Petersburg Academy of
Sciences refused, in spite of very strong recommendations, to
elect him member of its chemical section. His liberal tendencies
were an abomination. But other and greater honors came to
this sage. The University of Moscow promptly made him one of
its honorary members. The Royal Society of England presented
him with the Davy Medal which he shared with Lothar Meyer
for the Periodic Classification of the Elements.

Years later, as he was being honored by the English Chemical
Society with the coveted Faraday Medal, Mendele'eff was
handed a small silk purse worked in the Russian national colors
and containing the honorarium, according to the custom of
the Society. Dramatically he tumbled the sovereigns out on
the table, declaring that nothing would induce him to accept
money from a Society which had paid him the high compliment
of inviting him to do honor to the memory of Faraday in a
place made sacred by his labors. He was showered with deco-
rations by the chemical societies of Germany and America, by
the Universities of Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, and Got-
tingen. Sergius Witte, Minister of Finance under Czar Alex-
ander III, appointed him Director of the Bureau of Weights
and Measures.

Mendele'eff broke away from the conventional attitude of
Russians towards women, and treated them as equals in their
struggle for work and education. While he held them to be
mentally inferior to men, he did not hesitate to employ women
in his office, and admitted them to his lectures at the university.
He was twice married. With his first wife, who bore him two
children, he led an unhappy life. She could not understand
the occasional fits of temper of this queer intellect. The couple
soon separated and were eventually divorced. Then he fell
madly in love with a young Cossack beauty of artistic tempera-

138 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

ment, and, at forty-seven, remarried. Anna Ivanovna Popova
understood his sensitive nature, and they lived very happily.
She would make allowances for his flights of fancy and occa-
sional selfishness. Extremely temperamental and touchy, he
wanted everybody to think well of him. At heart he was kind
and lovable. Two sons and two daughters were born to them
and Mendeleeff ofttimes expressed the feeling that "of all
things I love nothing more in life than to have my children
around me." Dressed in the loose garments which his idol, Leo
Tolstoy, wore, and which Anna had sewed for him, Dmitri
would sit at home for hours smoking. He made an impressive
figure. His deep-set blue eyes shone out of a fine expressive
face half covered by a long patriarchal beard. He always fasci-
nated his many guests with his deep guttural utterances. He
loved books, especially books of adventure. Fenimore Cooper
and Byron thrilled him. The theatre did not attract him, but
he loved good music and painting. Accompanied by his wife,
who herself had made pen pictures of some of the great figures
of science, he often visited the picture galleries. His own study
was adorned by her sketches of Lavoisier, Newton, Galileo,
Faraday, and Dumas.

When the Russo-Japanese War broke out in February, 1904,
Mendeleeff turned out to be a strict nationalist. Old as he was,
he added his strength in the hope of victory. Made advisor to
the Navy, he invented pyrocollodion, a new type of smokeless
powder. The destruction of the Russian fleet in the Straits of
Tsushima and Russia's defeat hastened his end. His lungs had
always bothered him; as a youth his doctor had given him only
a few months to live. But his powerfully-set frame carried him
through more than seventy years of life. Then one day in
February, 1907, the old scientist caught cold, pneumonia set
in, and as he sat listening to the reading of Verne's Journey
to the North Pole, he expired. Two days later Menschutkin,
Russia's eminent analytical chemist, died, and within one year
Russia had lost her greatest organic chemist, Friedrich Konrad
Beilstem. Staggering blows to Russian chemistry.

To the end, Mendeleeff dung to scientific speculations. He
published an attempt towards a chemical conception of the
ether. He tried to solve the mystery of this intangible some-
thing which pervades the whole universe. To him ether was
material, belonged to the Zero Group of Elements, and con-
sisted of particles a million times smaller than the atoms of
hydrogen.

Two years after he was laid beside the grave of his mother

MEI 139

and son, Pattison Muir declared that "the future will decide
whether the Periodic Law is the long looked for goal, or only
a stage in the journey a resting place while material is gath-
ered for the next advance." Had Mendele*eff lived a few more
years, he would have witnessed the complete and final develop-
ment of his Periodic Table by a young Englishman at
Manchester.

The Russian peasant of his day never heard of the Periodic
Table, but he remembered Dmitri Mendele"eft for another
reason. One day, to photograph a solar eclipse, he shot into
the air in a balloon, "flew on a bubble and pierced the sky."
And to every boy and girl of the Soviet Union today
Mendele"eff is a national hero.

X

ARRHENIUS

THREE MUSKETEERS FIGHT FOR IONS

TN THE historic chemical laboratory of the University of
J. Leipzig two men, a German born in Riga, and a Swede, met
towards the end of the nineteenth century to plan a great battle
against an established theory and the scientific inertia which
upheld it. Meanwhile, over in Amsterdam, another scientist, a
Dutchman, worked in the same campaign. From this trium-
virate came a barrage of scientific experiments which made
possible a new era in the field of theoretical and applied
chemistry. Here, at Leipzig, the Headquarters of the lonians,
the great struggle was directed.

The three were all young men. Svante Arrhenius was hardly
more than a boy. Van't Hoff, the Dutch professor, was thirty-
five, and Ostwald, the moving spirit of the revolt, a year
younger. The quest for scientific truth had brought these three
together, and they vowed to force the venerable authorities of
the scientific world to accept the new leaven of the younger
generation. The masters, under whom they had cut their
scientific eye-teeth, must be shown the folly of ignoring genius
among their students.

One of the most difficult problems of that time was a rational
understanding of what goes on in a solution when an electric
current is sent through it. Even before that memorable day,
nearly a century before, when the first experimenter arranged
the two poles of his galvanic battery so that an electric current
might pass through a solution, this problem had puzzled and
perplexed the brainiest of those who followed him. Both Davy
and Grothuss had attempted explanations. Faraday, discoverer
of electromagnetic induction, had also investigated this subject
and had created its terminology. Yet no solution had been
found.

The same love of adventure that impelled his countryman
Rolf to set sail for the coasts of Normandy prompted Svante
Arrhenius to undertake the exploration of a problem that had
baffled men grown old in dingy laboratories. An electric cur-
rent could not be made to traverse distilled water. Neither
would solid salt offer free passage to electricity. Yet when
salt and water were mixed, their solution became a liquid

140

AKRHENIUS 141

through which electricity could pass with ease. And, as the
electric current passed through this solution, a deep-seated
decomposition took place. How could one explain this strange
behavior of solutions?

Svante not only wondered but set to work. He was a vision-
ary who soared in the clouds as he watched his test tubes and
beakers. He had always been a dreamer, even when as a lad he
attended school in his native village of Wijk near Upsala. At
seventeen he had graduated, the youngest and ablest student of
his class. He had given a brilliant account of himself in mathe-
matics and the sciences. Carried on the shoulders of his friends,
he was taken to the nearest hat shop to obtain the white velvet
cap insignia of the university student. At the State University
of Upsala, where his father, too, had studied, he chose chem-
istry as his major subject. He hoped to follow in the footprints
of Berzelius, who, eighty years before, had walked the same
halls and listened to the romance of chemistry in the same
lecture rooms.

At twenty-two, Svante was ready for his doctorate and went
to Stockholm. He had some queer notions of his own about the
passage of electricity through solutions. He had done a great
deal of thinking and experimenting along this line. Why not
choose this problem for his thesis? It did not take him long
to decide. He shut himself up in his laboratory. Day after day
and often far into the night he filled beaker after beaker with
solutions of different salts. One shining glass beaker contained
a weak solution of copper sulfate. He labelled it accurately.
A second tumbler was filled with a still weaker solution of
magnesium sulfate. All over his laboratory table were bottles
and flasks neatly marked with formulas and concentrations.
Through each of these solutions he passed electric currents. He
weighed, measured and recorded all the results. And, as he
watched bubbles of gas issuing from the plates dipped into the
various solutions, his hunch, which was to solve the mystery,
grew stronger.

Cavendish, a century before, had attempted to compare quan-
titatively the electrical conductivity of rain water with vari-
ous salt solutions. Possessing no galvanometer to register the
strength of the currents, he had bravely converted his own
nervous system into one. As he discharged Leyden jars through
the different liquids he compared the electric shocks which he
received. With this crude, heroic method he obtained a number
of surprisingly accurate results.

Arrhenius was much better equipped. Great strides had since

142 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

been made in the field of electrical measurements. He, too, was
an accurate worker and a patient oue. For two years he toiled
ceaselessly. Tiring, monotonous work, you might say. What joy
or fun in sticking shiny electrodes into dozens of glass beakers
and watching bubbles of gas or the movements of the dials on
galvanometers, ammeters and voltmeters? The sun never shone
for Svante during those months in the laboratory. He tried
innumerable experiments with more than fifty different salts
in all possible degrees of dilution.

"My great luck was that I investigated the conductivities of
the most dilute solutions/' he wrote later. "In these dilute solu-
tions the laws are simple compared with those for concentrated
solutions, which had been examined before." Luck it was, to
some extent. But others had observed how the passage of the
electric current became easier as more water was added to the
concentrated solutions. They, too, had noticed some relation
between the strength of an acid and its power to conduct a
current. Arrhenius, however, was the first to see clearly the
strange relationship between the ease of passage of an electric
current through a solution, and the concentration of that
solution.

Amid the never-ending washing of beakers and bottles and
the perpetual weighings and recordings, Arrhenius stole mo-
ments to ponder over the meaning of it all. But first he must
finish all of the experimental work. In the spring he had com-
pleted it. "I have experimented enough," he said. "Now I must
think/' He left his laboratory and returned to his home in the
country to work out the theoretical part of his research. One
night he sat up till very late. In those days the whole world,
both of his waking and sleeping existence, was a world of
solutions, currents and mathematical data. The rest did not
exist. From the sublimated speculations of his experiments,
suddenly there crystallized like a flash the answer to the great
riddle, "I got the idea in the night of the 17th of May in the
year 1883, and I could not sleep that night until I had worked
through the whole problem."

Svante had a keen pictorial faculty and a remarkable mem-
ory which helped him visualize the whole range of data he had
collected during those two years at Upsala. As a boy he would
sit beside his father, manager of the University grounds, and
hdp him with the accounts of the estate. He could remember
and repeat with ease long rows of figures,

His thesis was now completed. He returned to Upsala with
$tie dissertation in his pocket. He came to Cleve, his professor

ARRHENIUS 143

of chemistry, with the new theory formulated in his thesis. "I
have a new theory of electrical conductivity/* said Svante
Arrhenius. Cleve, discoverer of holmium and thulium, was no
doubt a skilful experimenter and investigator of the rare earth
elements. But theories to him were abominations to be fought
or ignored entirely. In the classroom Arrhenius had listened to
him for months. Never once had he heard a single mention of
the great Periodic Law of Mendele*eff, even though the Rus-
sian's Table of the Elements was now more than ten years old.

Cleve turned to this chemical tyro. "You have a new theory?
That is very interesting. Good-by." Svante did not lose heart.
He knew Cleve he had not expected a very enthusiastic
response.

As a candidate for the doctor's degree, Arrhenius had to
defend his thesis in open debate. This was an event of great
interest. The University appointed an opponent, Svante had
taken special care in preparing his thesis. His professors at
Upsala would be sure to search for the slightest error even of
type-setting. He recognized the impossibility of getting them to
accept the whole of his heterodox theory. He must not offend
existing beliefs too ruthlessly. As a candidate for the doctorate
he could not afford to tear down the idols they worshiped and
hope to escape damnation. He could not, without danger to the
theory he had conceived, make the heretical statements to
which his thinking had led him. To save his new theory he
was willing to compromise a little. "If I had made such state-
ments in my doctor's thesis it would not have been approved,"
he later told the scientific world.

Arrhenius feared the enthusiasm of his youth might overstep
the bounds of safety. He held himself in check. Carefully he
chose the words for his answers. He made sure not to ride
roughshod over the established principles of the University
of Upsala.

At the end of four hours the questioning was over. Svante,
in formal dress, waited breathlessly for the verdict. He expected
trouble. The professors appeared to look upon him as a "stupid
school-boy" as Arrhenius remarked years later. They examined
his complete record at the University. He had done fairly good
work in mathematics, physics and biology.

The final result was announced. In spite of his dissertation,
he was grudgingly awarded his degree, and as a laurel wreath
was placed on his head, a cannon outside boomed the advent
of another doctor of philosophy. The award, however, was in
reality a veiled condemnation of his theory. His dissertation

144 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

was awarded only a fourth class and his defence a third class.

Svante was almost brokenhearted. "It was difficult to see
how the University of Upsala, the University of Bergman and
Berzeiius, could have condemned a brilliant thesis on the very
subject of electrochemistry associated with their names/' This
was the judgment of Sir James Walker, professor of chemistry
at the University of Edinburgh. This discouragement might
have ended Svante's career as a chemist. But he was convinced
that he had within his thesis a tool which would be a blessing
to science. He, the Viking of Truth, was ready to do battle to
vindicate his theory. But first he must ally himself with men
of power in the field of chemistry. He himself was an unknown
he might look ludicrous in the armor of a chemical crusader.

Upsala was not friendly; he was certain of that. Stockholm,
too, was unenthusiastic had he not submitted his thesis to the
Swedish Academy of Sciences only to be met with a cold recep
tion? Sweden, the country of Scheele, Berzeiius, and Linnaeus,
could not see the prophet within its walls.

Svante decided to appeal to the scientific world outside of
Sweden. He sent a copy of his thesis to Rudolf Clausius, foraiu-
lator of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This German
scientist was also the recognized oracle of electrochemistry.
More than thirty years before, he had said: "In a solution the
atoms composing molecules are constantly exchanging partners
and, as a consequence, a certain proportion of the atoms will be
uncombined at any instant." This statement seemed then the
last word on the subject of Arrhenius* dissertation. "He was a
great authority," thought Arrhenius, "therefore it could not be
regarded as unwise to share his ideas/' at least in part. Ar-
rhenius, therefore, explained that the molecules which are
active in solution "are in the state described by Clausius." This
expression "did not look so dangerous." But his tactful attempt
to win over this German authority also failed. He received no
encouragement. Clausius, now old and in feeble health, was
not sufficiently interested.

Arrhenius now sent his dissertation to Lothar Meyer. Surely
Meyer would have the vision to see and the courage to uphold
this new theory! For had he not, independently of Mendeleeff,
arrived at the Periodic Law of the Elements? Surely this
German would enter the lists in support of his heterodox
theory! But Lothar Meyer, too, was silent.

Wilhelm Ostwald, professor of chemistry at the Polytechni-
cal School at Riga, also heard from Arrhenius. This champion
of daring chemical causes received Svante's paper on the day

ARRHENIUS 145

his wife presented him with a new daughter. He was suffering,
that very day, from a painful toothache! Ostwald later re-
marked that it "was too much for one day. The worst was
the dissertation, for the others developed quite normally."

Arrhenius somehow felt that Ostwald would understand.
That was a lucky hunch. Ostwald read every word of that
memoir. He was tremendously excited. He flew up like a hornet
and raged at the stupidity of the Upsala professors. One could
not help recognizing the genius of this young man. He jumped
at the revolutionary idea that only ions took part in chemical
reactions. Here was another momentous cause worth fighting
for.

Ostwald lost no time Dropping all his work, he left at once
for Sweden. He made the long journey from Riga to Stock-
holm convinced that assistance had to come immediately to the
young talent. The two met in Stockholm in August, 1884.

What was this iconoclastic dactrine of young Svante, which
kindled a blaze and set the chemical world afire? Arrhenius
introduced a startling idea. He said that when a solid salt like
common table salt, sodium chloride, was dissolved in water a
tremendous change took place. This change was invisible. Pure
water itself was a non-conductor of electricity. The pure solid
salt, likewise, would not conduct an electric current. But when
salt and water were mixed, an instantaneous change occurred.
The molecules of sodium chloride split up, dissociated into
particles which, years before, Faraday had labelled ions at the
suggestion of William Whewell, an expert in nomenclature,
Faraday had pictured these ions as being produced by the
electric current. Arrhenius said they were already present in
the solution, even before the electric current was sent through.

These two parts of the molecule of sodium chloride were
absolutely free In solution the ions swam around in all direc-
tions. There were no longer any sodium chloride molecules
present. Only sodium ions and chlorine ions peopled the water.
Here was the crash of a holy idol. Clausius had said that only
some of the molecules were in this peculiar condition of dis-
memberment. Young Svante, the beginner, had dared declare
that all the molecules in dilute solutions were disrupted.

If this were true, some asked, then why could not the green~
ish yellow color of poisonous chlorine be seen? It was a logical
and formidable question. Arrhenius answered that the chlorine
ions differed from the atoms of chlorine because the ions were
electrically charged. Dissociation had changed the atoms into
ions, and the charge of electricity had changed the ion to such

146 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

an extent that it differed fundamentally from its parent atom.

Here was a new chemistry the chemistry of zons strange,
infinitesimal particles of matter bearing infinitely small electric
charges which carried an electric current through solutions, and
then, as they touched the electrodes, gave up their electric
charges and returned once more to the atomic state. This
mighty drama took place every time an inorganic acid, alkali or
salt dissolved in water. Arrhenius was the first who saw clearly
this invisible miracle role of the molecule in solution.

Ostwald grasped the value of this explanation almost at a
glance. He was ready to accept the sweeping statement that
chemical reactions in solution were reactions between tons.
What a vast new field of experimentation it opened to sciencel

Ostwald and Arrhenius spent many pleasant days together
in Stockholm. As they walked arm in arm along the shores of
beautiful Lake Malar they spoke about ions until they were
as real and tangible as so many electrified balls "Ostwald of
course visited my dear friend and teacher Cleve/' wrote
Arrhenius. "Ostwald spoke to him one day in his laboratory.
I came a little later; I was not expected. I heard Cleve
say. 'Do you believe sodium chloride is dissolved into sodium
and chlorine? In this glass I have a solution of sodium chloride.
Do you believe there are sodium and chlorine in it? Do they
look so?'JOh, yes/ Ostwald said, 'there is some truth in that
idea/ Then I came in and the discussion was at an end. Cleve
threw a look at Ostwald which clearly showed that he did not
think much of his knowledge of chemistry." But Ostwald would
not hurt the old professor. Besides, he was saving his powder
for the great battle ahead. "We made plans/' wrote Arrhenius,
"regarding the development of the whole of chemistry/'

Ostwald had been completely won over by the blond, rubi-
cund, blue-eyed Swede. He invited him to corne to Riga to
continue his investigations in his laboratory Svante might have
gone on the moment He was weary of the stubbornness of the
professors of Upsala and Stockholm. But- just then death came
to his father, and he was delayed. Later, through the influence
of Ostwald, he was given a travelling scholarship and at the
close of 1885 his five years of Wander jahre began. He went
straight to Riga to work under the inspiration of Ostwald.
There were many dubious points to be settled.

The winter of 1886-7 was approaching Arrhenius had spent
almost a year with Ostwald. Friedrich Kohlrausch at Wurtz-
burg had been busy experimenting on the conductivity of solu-
tions and had discovered that all the ions of the same element,

ARRHENIUS 147

regardless of the compound from which they were formed,
behaved in exactly the same way. Arrhenius heard of his valiant
work in this new field, and determined to leave Ostwald for a
while and study with Kohlrausch. Surely he could learn some-
thing from this skilful German.

Arrhenius must present a foolproof theory or be damned
by the chemical world as the parent of a monstrosity. In Kohl-
rausch's laboratory he jumped into the work again with the
fervor of a fanatic. He must bring to the unbelieving world of
science inexorable facts and invulnerable data. He read vora-
ciously every piece of research that touched upon his subject.
His star was bound to rise; soon he came across a memoir by
Jacobus Hendrik van't Hoff.

Van't Hoff was a dreamer with a mind that leaped above
the commonplace facts of chemistry and dared postulate new
ideas At twenty-two he had founded a new branch of chemistry,
"stereochemistry/* or the chemistry of atoms in space. He, too,
had met with stubborn opposition. The world was up in arms
against the "space chemistry" of this upstart. Kolbe, a dis-
tinguished German chemist, likened his stereochemistry to the
belief in witchcraft. It was pernicious and dangerous. He raved
against this fledgling. "A certain Dr van't Hoff, an official
of the Veterinary School at Utrecht," Kolbe wrote, "has no
taste for exact chemical investigations He has thought it more
convenient to bestride Pegasus, evidently hired at the veterin-
ary stables, and to proclaim in his Chemistry in Space how,
during his bold flight to the top of the chemical Parnassus, the
atoms appeared to him to have grouped themselves through-
out universal space." Van't Hoff was not perturbed. He photo-
graphed the most decrepit horse to be found in the veterinary
stables, labeled it Pegasus, and hung it on the walls of the
University of Utrecht.

Van't Hoff had fought his way to recognition, championed by
the same Wilhelm Ostwald. His "distorted theory" grew into a
robust idea which did much to develop the field of organic
chemistry. Now van't Hoff, thirteen years older, wrote about
a theory of solution which suggested that dissolved substances
obeyed the same laws as gases. Arrhenius read the paper very
carefully. In it he found experimental data which was to help
him fashion his own theories into a wonderfully consistent
whole. He recognized in the Dutchman's memoir a great
argument for his own theory of ionization.

Arrhenius was eager to work with van't Hoff. Time was pass-
ing rapidly and there was still much to be done. It was now

148 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

the summer of 1887. But first he must meet Ludwig Boltzmann
at Gratz with whom he worked until the following spring Then
Arrhemus set out for Amsterdam. On his way he stopped at
Kiel to talk with Max Planck, who became keenly interested
in his theory and spent some time investigating it. This man
Planck was another visionary who at the opening of the
twentieth century, was to enunciate the "quantum" principle,
a law of nature that shook the whole scientific world.

The friendship of Arrhemus and van't Hoff began when they
met for the first time in Amsterdam. As van't Hoff worked
side by side with Arrhemus for months, their devotion grew.
Few men worked with more unselfishness. They talked about
each other's theories They discussed solutions, ions, gas laws
and osmotic pressure. They pledged themselves to do battle
for a common cause.

But Arrhenius was beginning to miss the fire of Ostwald,
the human dynamo, whose essential characteristic was energy.
He was almost ready for his final memoir on the chemical
theory of electrolytes. He needed the effective aid and the
cheering encouragement of his commander. Ostwald had writ-
ten telling him of his new appointment as professor, at the
University of Leipzig. Arrhenius went there immediately. In
the presence of Ostwald he could not help but gain renewed
confidence in his theory. They brought together all the puzzling
facts of electrolysis of solutions. Here they sat and planned
the great Battle of the Ions. Ostwald had the foresight and
shrewdness of the modern campaigner. He was ready to launch
a drive that was to end in a wave of enthusiasm for the ideas
of Arrhenius. He first used the weapon of his newly founded
scientific journalthe Zeitschnft fur Physikahsche Chemieto
broadcast the new theory of dissociation. He knew that the
great notoriety which would be given to the theory even by
opposition would suffice to launch a tremendous amount not
only of discussion but of experimentation.

Ostwald's campaign was effective. Europe began to hear
about Arrhenius and his strange ions. The young students in
Ostwald's laboratory had been the first to hear the odd name
of Svante Arrhenius. In the halls outside the laboratory where
they gathered to smoke they were forbidden this luxury in
the laboratory they spoke in whispers about this man whom
their master had taken under his wing. James Walker recalled
how one day he "peered out of the laboratory and saw a stout-
ish, fair young man talking to Ostwald near the entrance hall.
It was Arrhenius. We were made acquainted by Ostwald. He

ARRHENIUS 149

was the simplest and least assuming of men. He gave himself
no airs"

When, in 1887, Arrhenius' classical paper "On the Dissocia-
tion of Substances in Aqueous Solutions" appeared in the first
volume of the Zeitschnft, there was printed beside it van't
HofFs memoirs on the analogy between the gaseous and dis-
solved state As was anticipated, great opposition was aroused.
The Battle of the Ions was raging in earnest, Ostwald led his
small but valiant army of lonians like a true warrior of old.
His two solitary lieutenants were Arrhenius and van't Hoff. The
host of the opposition was a formidable one There were many
in the workshops of science who would not swallow these ions.
Even Mendeleeff opposed them, because he did not consider
the theory in accordance with facts His opposition, however,
was not so severe He believed that "the conception of electrical
dissociation, although retarding the progress of the theory of
solutions, was useful in giving the motive for collecting a store
of experimental data to be embraced by a truer explanation in
the future." Others, more severe, brought argument after
argument to bear against these ions

Ostwald, the great chemical crusader, leader of forlorn and
victorious hopes, was impatient. "Let us attack them," he
boomed, "that is the best method " He opened the pages of his
chemical journal to the champions of the great cause. He in-
vaded the enemy's territory He worked heroically in his own
laboratory. He instituted the first laboratory for instruction in
physical chemistry in history. Students came to him from all
over the world From England came Ramsay. From America
came Harry Clary Jones of Johns Hopkins, Wilder Bancroft
of Cornell, Arthur Amos Noyes and William David Coolidge
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Theodore
W. Richards of Harvard Ostwald had difficulty m speaking
English; he filled his mouth with zwieback to get the correct
sound of "the " His students were amazed at his energy and
enthusiasm. The young Americans, especially, looked up to
him with reverence, for he had been the sole chemist in all
Europe who, more than ten years before, had recognized the
work of the modest retiring American, Josiah Willard Gibbs
of Yale, one of the greatest scientific products of his generation.
In 1890, the three musketeers of physical chemistry met in
England, where they were invited to discuss the theory of solu-
tion with a committee of the British Association. Opinion was
now divided as to the merits of the new theory. Many frankly
admitted they were not competent to pass judgment. Professor

150 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Percival Pickering maintained that "the theory of dissociation
is altogether unintelligible to the majority of chemists." They
wanted to ask more questions of these wild lonians. Ramsay,
who had studied under Ostwald, tried to clear the way for the
acceptance by English scientists of the views of Arrhenius.
Lodge, too, was present, and was not antagonistic to the new
theory. But Lord Kelvin of Glasgow was not convinced. Sir
William Tilden also was hostile, nor wo'uld the French chemists
accept the theory of lonization. It was a bitter uphill battle.
Ostwald, Arrhenius and van't Hoff parted with renewed
declarations to see the fight through.

Ostwald wrote to Arrhenius to come and settle down in
Leipzig as a profesor at the University, but he chose to stay
in Sweden, and accepted a minor position as lecturer and
teacher at the Technical High School of Stockholm. Here he
remained for four years and found time, between his ion-
chasing and bottle washing, to marry Sofia, the daughter of
Lieutenant Colonel Carl Rudback A son was born to them,
Olav Vilhelm, who, as a young man, joined the ranks of the
workers on soil science and agricultural botany.

His post at the Technical High School was now to be con-
verted into a professorship at the University of Stockholm.
The news of this impending change spread. The enemies of
the lonians gathered to prevent the appointment of Arrhenius.
He could not be ousted without some semblance of trial. It
was agreed to subject him to an examination. What humili-
ation! Arrhenius, laughing inwardly at this farce, presented
himself before the trio of learned scientists. Kelvin, the eminent
British scientist, was one of the examining committee. Hassel-
berg, a Swede, and Christiansen, a Dane, completed the group
of inquisitors.

Far away at Leipzig Ostwald heard of this and roared, "It
is preposterous to question the scientific standing of such a
giant as Arrhenius." He wrote to Stockholm and fought hard
for his friend. The examination, however, came off as sched-
uled. Arrhenius, not at all disconcerted, answered the volleys
of questions quietly and confidently. This time he was not
going to distort the truth of ionization even for a Kelvin.

When the examination was over and the report submitted, a
new tumult was raised. Kelvin opposed the theory in general.
He could -understand nothing, he said, which could not be
translated into a mechanical model. For this reason he had
likewise rejected Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light.
Only the Dane submitted an enthusiastic judgment of the

ARRHENIUS 151

competence of Arrhenius. His own countryman, Hasselberg,
declared that his answers "were not physical enough" to make
him fitted for a professorship. What a comedy! The University
authorities kept searching, in the meantime, for a foreign pro-
fessor to fill the newly created position. Had they succeeded
in obtaining one eminent enough to accept the chair of chem-
istry, they would have sidetracked Arrhenius altogether. But
Ostwald kept fighting tooth and nail for his friend. The Uni-
versity of Stockholm feared a scientific scandal. And just as
the Bunsen Society in Germany was electing him an honorary
member for his Theory of Dissociation, Arrhenius was finally
made professor at the University of Stockholm.

The struggle for recognition was still going on. The theory
had opponents aplenty. From Ostwald's own laboratory, at
Leipzig, Louis Kahlenberg had graduated with a Ph.D., summa
cum laude, the highest honor obtainable. He had dug into the
theory of Arrhenius but was not convinced of its truth. The
theory had entirely neglected the existence of chemical reac-
tions in solutions other than water. Arrhenius had declared
that chemical reactions took place only between ions in solu-
tion. But Kahlenberg had undeniable proof that some reactions
took place in solutions which could not conduct an electric
current and hence, according to Arrhenius, contained no ions.

Kahlenberg went back to the University of Wisconsin and
worked ten years as professor of chemistry to disprove the truth
of the conception of Arrhenius. He tried the queerest experi-
ments, which seemed miles away from his subject. But Wis-
consin was a place for freak experiments, anyway. Here Stephen
Moulton Babcock and his young assistants performed the most
outlandish experiments on men and beasts and finally dis-
covered the "hidden hunger" of the vitamins. For weeks
Kahlenberg gathered together an experimental group of fifteen
people in his office. There were twelve young men between the
ages of twenty and thirty, three young women of the same ages,
one woman of sixty, and a man of sixty-three. He had them
taste all sorts of beverages and carefully record their reactions.
When he finally disbanded this council of taste he had come
to the conclusion that here, at least, Arrhenius was right.
Hydrogen ions were responsible for the sour taste of acids. A
strong acid was one which contained a large number of these
hydrogen ions, and a weak acid contained only a few of
these ions.

But what of the numerous cases which would not fit into
Arrhenius' scheme of things? Kahlenberg was just as emphatic

152 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

in opposing the ionic theory as his teacher Ostwald was in
defending it. As late as 1900 he fought against the theory and
prophesied its doom. But he lived long enough to witness
the triumph of lonization. "The chemistry of atoms and mole-
cules gave place to the chemistry of ions," declared Jones.
Ostwald used the completed theory of Arrhenius with such
skill and understanding that he laid the basis of a new ana-
lytical chemistry upon the bedrock of ions. Electrolysis, electro-
plating and other applications of electrochemistry have their
foundations deeply rooted in this new theory. Even physiology
and bacteriology have come to it for support.

The authorities had made no mistake in promoting Arrhe-
nius. Within two years after his appointment as professor, he
was elected President of the University. His great battle was
being won. His fame began to spread. Five years later the
Royal Society of England honored him with the Davy Medal.
In the following year came the crowning recognition. He
received the Nobel Prize, the highest honor in science.

In June, 1904, he spoke before the Royal Institution, and
the following week sailed for America, on his first visit to the
United States. At the St. Louis Exposition to which he had
been invited, he again saw Ostwald and van't Hoff. The three
musketeers were still riding. They met again to take stock of
the new theory. It had fared well Two of the musketeers were
Nobel Prize winners, and Ostwald was soon to be similarly
honored

On the way home Arrhenius was offered a professorship of
chemistry at the Berlin Academy of Sciences, the same honor
which van't Hoff had previously accepted. King Oscar II of
Sweden planned a more tempting offer to keep him at home.
The King founded the Nobel Institute for Physical Research
at Stockholm, and Arrhenius was made director. Oxford and
Cambridge honored him with degrees.

In 1911 Arrhenius again visited this country to deliver a
series of lectures at our principal universities. He was invited
by the Chemists' Club of New York to talk to its members on
May 17, because on that night, twenty-eight-years ago, he had
received the inspirational flash of the true meaning of electro-
lysis. The Willard Gibbs Medal was presented to him by
the American Chemical Society.

When the battle was over and the victorious lonians had
put away their armor, Ostwald, the picturesque standard bearer
of radical theories, purchased a country estate in Gross Bothen,
appropriately named it Energie, and settled down to further

ARRHENIUS 153

work in chemistry. Van't Hoff had died in 1911. Arrhenius,
still as vigorous and acute as he had been a generation back,
turned from his original triumph to other fields of speculation.
His fertile mind became active in the field of astronomy. His
meditations led him to a new theory the birth of the solar
system by the collision of great stars. Cosmogony was not the
only branch of contemplative science he cultivated. He specu-
lated as to the nature of comets, the aurora borealis, the tem-
perature of celestial bodies and the causes of the glacial periods.
He observed a strange periodicity of certain natural phenom-
ena. He reflected upon the world's supply of energy, and
studied the conservation of natural resources. Like Becher and
Ostwald, he dreamed of a universal language, suggesting a
modified English He was a true polyhistor. There was hardly
a field of science which he left unnoticed, and in all he pre-
sented original if not altogether universally accepted ideas.

He did more than speculate. He hurried to Frankfort to
study the treatment of disease with serums. He was one of
those who watched Paul Ehrlich shoot injections of fluids into
the blood stream of animals suffering from malignant diseases.
Arrhenius marvelled at his dexterity and almost superhuman
perseverance. He made a careful study of the work, and was
the first to attempt to explain the chemistry of this serum
therapy,

Arrhenius also spent three weeks at Manchester, in the lab-
oratory of Rutherford whose new discovery was convulsing the
scientific world. He wanted to learn more about it at first hand.
The young New Zealander fascinated the Swede. Later, when
he came to America, Arrhenius made a trip to the marine
biological laboratory of Jacques Loeb. Arrhenius had met this
experimental biologist while a student at Strassburg. He had
come now to watch him demonstrate how the unfertilized egg
of a sea urchin could be made to develop by chemical means.
It was one of the most thrilling experiences he had witnessed.
A carefully prepared chemical solution had performed the
function of wriggling sperm. Loeb had seen the importance of
Arrhenius' theory of ionization and had made use of it in his
study of the physiology of the lower animals.

Arrhenius pondered over the problem which Woehler had
evoked when he synthesized urea. Could life on this earth have
originated from the inanimate without the intervention of
some vital force? Arrhenius could not believe this Rather he
felt that life on this planet had started from a living spore
carried or pushed from some other planet by sunbeams or

154 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

starbeams until it finally fell upon the earth. Giordano Bruno,
philosopher and poet, had been burnt at the stake in 1600, m
the presence of Pope Clement VIII, for daring to say that other
worlds might be blessed with life. This was no longer a dan-
gerous idea but still revolutionary. Waves of light, Arrhenius
maintained, actually pushed small particles of matter away
from a star and brought them to the earth trillions of miles
away. Arrhenius pictured these spores swept through the ether
like corks carried by the waves of the ocean. He calculated the
size of particles that could be moved by this light pressure, and
found it to be within the limits of the size and weight of
bacteria. He estimated the speed of this interstellar movement,
and found it would take only three weeks for spores to be
propelled from Mars to the earth, and nine thousand years
from the nearest star This theory of panspermia was chal-
lenged by the contention that any life-bearing seed would have
perished in the frigid temperatures of interstellar space. But
the theory was still safe, at least from this attack. Bacteria, sub-
jected to temperatures very close to those reached between
celestial bodies, lived after removal from liquid helium.

Such was the rich versatility of Arrhenius. He helped to
popularize science by writing Worlds in the Making, Life of
the Universe, Destiny of the Stars, and it is difficult to believe
that this imaginative man, who possessed the literary ability
of a poet, was not particularly interested in literature or the
fine arts. His chief, perhaps his only delight, was in natural
truth and natural beauty He mixed very little in the political
life of his country Only on rare occasions did he talk about
matters of government. He was opposed to the dissolution of
the union of Norway and Sweden in 1905, but later his feelings
in the matter changed, and he expressed the hope that Britain
might give Ireland similar freedom. During the first World
War he openly sympathized with the Allies, much as he owed
to Germany during his early years of struggle.

In the early part of 1927, when Arrhenius was past sixty-
eight, his advanced age and failing health compelled him to
retire from the Directorship of the Nobel Institute. Sweden
honored him without stint. He was granted a full pension for
the remainder of his life. But scarcely had he left the Institute
when news reached the world that this great figure had joined
the eternal caravan of those who had watched the crucible.
After a public funeral at Stockholm, his body was taken to
Upsala and buried near the University of Berzehus and
Linnaeus. His life adds testimony to the native genius of Sweden.

XI

CURIE

THE STORY OF MARIE AND PIERRE

INTO a desolate region in Southern Colorado, in the latter
part of 1920, came a small army of men to dig for ore. Every
acre of America had been searched for such a mineral. Twenty
years before it could have been imported from Austria, but
conditions had changed. The Austrian Government had placed
an embargo upon its exportation. So Joseph M. Flannery he
was the leader of this band of men had to be satisfied with
the sand in barren Colorado There was nothing left to do but
dig it out of this God-forsaken place.

Flannery's gang, three hundred strong, worked feverishly to
collect tons of this sand called carnotite. They dug, sweated and
often swore at the insanity of a boss who took them so far away
from civilization. Into wagons they threw the canary yellow
ore, and surefooted burros hauled it over eighteen miles of
roadless land half a mile above sea level. At the end of that
mean trail Flannery had set up a concentration mill, the near-
est water supply to the ore mines. In this mill five hundred tons
of carnotite were chemically treated until only one hundred
tons were left This dirt was crushed into powder, packed into
hundred-pound sacks and shipped sixty-five miles to Placer-
ville. At this railway center the bags were loaded into freight
cars destined for Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, twenty-five hun-
dred miles away.

Here two hundred men were waiting to reduce this mass of
powder to but a few hundred pounds. Workers skilled in the
handling of chemicals used tons of acids, water and coal to
extract the invaluable treasure from the ore. Not a grain of
the precious stuff hidden in this mound of powder was lost in
innumerable boilings, filterings and crystallizations. Months
passed, and at last all that remained of the Colorado sand was
sent, under special guard, to the research laboratories of the
Standard Chemical Company in Pittsburgh. And now began
the final task a careful and painstaking procedure of separa-
tion. A year's work to extract from these five hundred tons of
dust just a few crystals of a salt!

For this thimbleful of glistening salt five hundred men had
struggled with a mountain of ore. It was the most precious

155

156 CRUCIBLES* THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

substance in all the world a hundred thousand times more
valuable than gold. For this gram of salt one hundred thousand
dollars had been spent. A fabulous price for a magic stonel

Into a steel box lined with thick walls of lead, enclosed in
a casket of polished mahogany, were placed these tiny crystals
in ten small tubes The precious casket, weighing fifty pounds,
was locked and guarded in the company's safe to await the
arrival of a visitor from France,

On May 20, 1921, in the reception room of the White House
stood the President of the United States. Around him sat the
French Ambassador, the Polish Minister, scientists, Cabinet
members, judges and other men and women well known in the
life of America. Before the President stood a frail, delicate
figure dressed in black with a black lace scarf thrown over her
shoulders The room was fragrant with the scent of flowers she
loved flowers. This woman, who had been honored by kings
and queens, stood here before the spokesman of a hundred
thousand women The President began to speak* "It has been
your fortune to accomplish an immortal work for humanity.
I have been commissioned to present to you this little phial
of radium. To you we owe knowledge and possession of it, and
so to you we give it, confident that in your possession it will
be the means to increase the field of useful knowledge to
alleviate suffering among the children of man."

Radium that was the magic element which had brought
Flannery and his gang of men into desolate Colorado to dig
for carnotite. Almost twenty-five years before, this woman, with
but one assistant, her beloved Pierre, had accomplished the
miracle of Flannery's five hundred men backed by a great
rnodern financial organization with every scientific invention
at its disposal. She had accomplished this wonderful work in
an abandoned old shed in Paris. She had solved a problem and
blazed a trial that Flannery and others have since travelled
with less travail.

For many years, in the chief laboratory of the Radium Insti-
tute of the University of Paris, this woman, until she was sixty-
six, worked silently with her test tubes and flasks while all the
world waited for another miracle. Even to the end the years,
had not completely broken this immortal bottle-washer. She
remained broad-shouldered and above average height. Her
splendidly arched brow was crowned with a mass of wavy gray
hair, once blond. Her soft, expressive, light blue eyes were
full of sadness.
Prophetic Mendele'efl had met this woman when she was a

CURIE 157

young girl mixing chemicals in her cousin's laboratory in her
native city of Warsaw He knew her father, professor of mathe-
matics and physics in the high school Mendele"eff predicted a
great future for Marie if she stuck to her chemistry. Marie
looked up at her father, smiled, and said nothing. This modest
and retiring girl, who had lost her mother when still an infant,
loved her father passionately Every Saturday evening he
would sit before the lamp and read masterpieces of Polish
prose and poetry She would learn long passages by heart and
recite them to him Her father was to her one of the three great
minds of history Karl Gauss, mathematician and astronomer,
and Isaac Newton were the other two. "My child," remarked
the professor when she confided this to him, "you have for-
gotten the other great mind Aristotle " And little Marie ac-
cepted his amendment in all seriousness.

Poland in those days was not a free Poland. It was part of
Russia. Since 1831 the czanst government from St. Petersburg
persecuted its refractory subjects who had unsuccessfully re-
volted in the hope of gaining complete independence Tyran-
nical Russia imposed many restrictions. The Polish language
was forbidden in the newspapers, churches and schools The
old University of Warsaw, whose professors were compelled to
teach in the Russian language, was only a ghost of what it had
once been And the Russian secret service was omnipresent.

When Marie was seventeen, conditions at home compelled
her to become governess in the family of a Russian nobleman.
She kept in constant touch with the political affairs of her
native country. Poland under Russian rule was suffering.
Secretly there had sprung up groups of young men and women
who vowed to overthrow the foreign oppressor. Among the
most fervid of these plotters were some of her father's students.
They assembled clandestinely to teach in the Polish language
those subjects they knew best, and Marie joined one of these
groups She had heard how. four years before her birth, Russian
cannon had been fired upon women kneeling in the snow. She
hated the Cossacks with their twisted hide whips. She even
wrote for a revolutionary sheet a dangerous practice, but she
was as fearless as she was bitter.

The Russian police rounded up some of the young rebels.
Marie escaped the net, but to avoid bearing witness against one
of her unfortunate friends, she left Warsaw and the hated
Russians. In the winter of 1891, at the age of twenty-four, she
arrived in Paris Paris, the city of her scientific triumphs, was
a place of bitter suffering during her first years. She rented a

158 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

small room in a garret; she could afford no better quarters It
was bitter cold in winter time, and stifling hot in the summer.
Up five flights o steps she was forced to carry water and the
coal for the little stove that gave her some warmth. She had to
stint, for her daily expenses, carefully figured, dare not exceed
half a franc. Her meals were often reduced to nothing more
than bread and chocolate. On the rare occasions when she al-
lowed herself the luxury of a meal of meat and wine she had
to acquire a new taste for these foods.

Marie did not mind these privations. She had come to
Paris to study and teach Europe was agog over the strange
ions of a young teacher at Stockholm Pasteur, old and broken
in health, was the idol of France. Mane began to dream of a
career in science. Strange that she should have such fancies at
a time when science was a closed field for women But she was
dreamer enough to believe herself to be the woman whom
destiny had selected to play a tremendous role in science. Had
not Mendeleeff told her so? Quick as a flash, she made up her
mind. She went to the Sorbonne and matriculated. It meant
washing bottles and taking care of the furnace in the laboratory
to meet expenses. But Faraday had done it why could not
Marie?

In the laboratory of Paul Schutzenberger, founder-director
of the Municipal School of Physics and Chemistry of Paris,
worked Pierre Curie, "a tall young man with auburn hair and
limpid eyes "He had graduated from the Sorbonne, and was
now doing research work with his brother Jacques on electrical
condensers and the magnetic property of iron. In 1894, at the
home of a mutual friend, Marie met Pierre "I noticed," she
wrote later, "the grave and gentle expression of his face, as
well as a certain abandon in his attitude suggesting the dreamer
absorbed in his reflections."

They began a conversation which naturally concerned scien-
tific matters How else could Marie have approached this silent
man? Then they discussed "certain social and humanitarian
subjects." Mane was happy for "there was between his con-
ceptions and mine, despite the difference between our native
countries, a surprising kinship " Pierre, too, was joyful He
was amazed at the learning of this girl, and when he frankly
admitted his astonishment, Marie twitted him with, "I wonder,
Monsieur, where you can have imbibed your strange notions
of a woman's limitations "

At twenty-two, Pierre had written, "Women of genius are
rare, and the average woman is a positive hindrance to a

CURIE 159

serious-minded scientist." He was thirty-five now, and his con-
tact with life had not changed his ideas much Yet Pierre was
captivated. He could not hide it, undemonstrative as he usually
appeared. He expressed a desire to see this magnetic woman
again. Marie walked on air. She wanted to know this dreamer.
The sadness of his face drew her to him. Marie came to
Schutzenberger and begged for permission to work beside
Pierre Her request was granted, for Schutzenberger was fond
of Pierre The shy, bashful, sixty-five-year-old scientist had
devoted his life to the pursuit of science Pierre, his young,
idealistic disciple was a kindred spirit. So here in the labora-
tory of the Ecole Mumcipale, Pierre and Marie met day after
day as teacher and pupil, suitor and admirer.

Pierre was beginning to experience a radical change of
opinion about women. Before long Pierre, who might have
been a man of letters, wrote to Marie* "It would be a lovely
thing to pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams:
your dream for your country, our dream for science. Together
we can serve humanity "

Marie was ready to go through life working at his side in
the citadel of science. Their courtship was a short and happy
one, and in July, 1895, they were married. Pierre, although
brought up in a Catholic home, believed in no cult, and Marie
at the time was not practicing any religion. Marie's father and
sister came from Poland to greet them It was a civil ceremony.
Only a few friends were present. Marie wore the same dress
as usual. It was a simple wedding They had neither time nor
money for elaborate ceremonies. They were both intensely
happy.

The problem of furnishing a home was not a very serious
one for two beings who cared nothing for convention. They
rented three rooms overlooking a garden and bought a little
furniture just the barest necessities. Pierre was made pro-
fessor of physics at the Ecole Mumcipale He was earning now
six thousand francs a year, and Marie continued with her
studies. They allowed themselves no luxuries except the pur-
chase of two bicycles for short weekend trips to the country,
when they went picnicking alone among the chickens and
flowers which Marie loved.

They were both back in the laboratory when, in Wurtzburg,
William Conrad Roentgen discovered a ray of great penetrat-
ing power. On January 4, 1896, he described these X-rays, as he
called them, to the members of the Berlin Physical Society.
And hardly had the news of the discovery of these X-rays,

160 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

which could penetrate solid objects and reveal the bony frame-
work of a man, reached the world when an accident of great
importance happened in the darkroom of the modest labora-
tory of Professor Henri Antoine Becquerel. It was known that
phosphorescent substances after exposure to sunlight became
luminous in the dark He was trying to find out whether such
phosphorescent substances gave off Roentgen's rays.

It was not the sort of accident to reach the front pages of
newspapers, although its result was world-shaking From this
accidental observation came a train of events which culminated
in the triumphal work of Mme Curie Quite by accident,
Becquerel had placed a piece of uranium ore upon a sensitized
photographic plate lying on a table m his darkroom. Uranium
salts had been known since 1789, they had been used to color
glass. There was nothing very remarkable about this substance.

But one morning Becquerel found more than he expected.
He noticed that in this completely darkened room the plate
covered with black paper had been changed under the very spot
on which the ore was placed. He could not understand this!
Perhaps someone had been playing a prank Now he delib-
erately tried the experiment to satisfy himself. The same effect
was noticed The photographic plate had been affected without
any visible light and only under the uranium ore How could
he explain this strange phenomenon? He repeated the experi-
ment with other ores containing the element uranium In every
case a spot was left on the plate. He analyzed the ores to de-
termine the amounts of actual uranium they contained, and
saw at once that the intensity of effect was directly proportional
to the amount of uranium present m each ore

Becquerel, famous scion of a family eminent for its re-
searches on fluorescent light, was ready to draw a definite con-
clusion. He announced that it was the uranium salt present in
each ore which was alone responsible for the strange effect pro-
duced on the photographic plate. But he did not cling very
long to this belief He tested the chief ore of uranium, pitch-
blende, a mineral which came from northern Bohemia. It was
a strange rock; it puzzled him Instead of giving a photographic
effect directly proportional to the amount of uranium present,
this ore was much more powerful than its uranium content
could account for. Becquerel now made the simplest inference.
"There must be," he said, "another element with power to
affect a photographic plate many times greater than uranium
itself."

Marie's lucky day had dawned. Becquerel recognized in this

CURIE 161

Polish girl at the Sorbonne a scientist of the first order. He had
watched her at work in the laboratory. Even as she weighed
chemicals and adjusted apparatus he observed the dexterity of
a trained and gifted experimenter. Yes, she had heard the
startling news. He presented the problem to her. Would she
undertake this piece of research?

She talked it over with Pierre. Her enthusiasm captivated
him. She told her husband that, in her opinion, the increased
activity of the ore from Bohemia was due to a hitherto un-
known element more powerful than uranium. "This sub-
stance/' she told Pierre, "cannot be one of the known elements,
because those have already been examined; it must be a new
element." Pierre was working on crystals, and she on the
magnetic properties of metals in solution. Both dropped all
their work to join in the great adventure of tracking down the
unknown cause of the great power of pitchblende. Mendeleff,
hearing of this, consulted his Periodic Table. There was room
for such an element. Marie was bound to find it.

The Curies had no money to undertake the search they bor-
rowed some. Neither had they any idea how much time it
would take They wrote to the Austrian Government which
owned the pitchblende mines. The Austrian officials were
willing to help. Soon, from the mines of Joachimsthal, there
arrived in Paris one ton of pitchblende. Marie was sure that
in this hill of sand the undiscovered metal lay hidden.

Those were hectic days for the Curies. They worked inces-
santly. Not a moment was wasted; the search was too alluring.
They boiled and cooked the great mound of dirt, filtered and
separated impurity after impurity. When the poison gases
threatened to stifle them under the leaky roof of their impro-
vised laboratory, Marie herself lifted and moved large vats of
liquid to the adjoining yard. It was the work of men, protested
Pierre, but Marie told him she was strong She could do super-
human work. For hours at a time she stood beside the boiling
pots stirring the thick liquids with a great iron rod almost as
large as herself. The stifling fumes made that shed a hell, but to
Marie beside her Pierre it was heaven. There stood Pierre
lifting great batches of heavy chemicals and dreaming of
scientific conquest.

"We lived m a preoccupation as complete as that of a
dream," remarked Mane years later. When the cold was so
intense that they could not continue their work, she would
brew some tea and draw closer to the cast-iron stove. The
bitter winter of 1896 came and found that mad couple still

162 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

laboring in their hangar. Marie was bound to break under this
terrific strain Soon pneumonia made her take to bed, and it
was three months before she was strong enough to return to
her boiling cauldrons. Pierre, too, at the end of each day's
work was broken with fatigue. But the search went on.

In the month of September, 1897, a daughter was born to
the Curies. Pierre's boyhood friends came to congratulate them.
Debierne, discoverer of actinium, Perrin, the molecule counter,
and George Urbam were among the visitors. The mother, as
she lay helpless, kept thinking of her job under the shed. When
the child was but a week old, Marie walked into that workshop
again to test out something that had occurred to her as she lay
in bed. However, she cared for baby Irene with the same devo-
tion she gave to science. Pierre, of course, helped her, and in
the evenings when he returned from the shack to assist Marie,
they spoke now of three things baby Irene, science and
Poland.

It became a serious difficulty for Marie to take care of Irene
and continue her scientific work. But a way out was soon found.
Pierre's mother had just died and his father, a retired physician
with a taste for research, came to live with them. Grandpa
watched and cared for his little girl, while her parents grappled
with a mound of sand.

In the meantime, the pile of pitchblende had dwindled down
to a hundred pounds. They made their separations by a method
of electrical measurement which exposed the more powerful
fractions of their material from the inactive parts. Often in
the midst of some chemical operation which could not be sus-
pended, Pierre would work for hours at a stretch, while Marie
prepared hasty meals which they ate as they continued their
task. Another year of heroic work. Again Marie was ill. Pierre
was ready to give up, but Marie was courageous. In spite of all
their sufferings, Marie confessed that "it was in that miserable
shed that we passed the best and happiest years of our life."

They were fighting a lone battle. No one came to help. When
almost two years of constant work were behind them, the news
of the great experiment leaked out, though they had tried to
keep it secret. Pierre was invited to accept a chair of physics at
the University of Geneva. It was a tempting offer. He made the
trip to Switzerland, but was back before long. The great work
would be in danger if he were to accept. Marie was happy
again.

By now they had extracted a small amount of bismuth salts
which showed the presence of a very active element. This ele-

CURIE 163

ment appeared to be about three hundred times as potent as
uranium Mane set to work and isolated from this bismuth
salt a substance which resembled nickel. Perhaps it was a new
element. She subjected it to every known test, and in July, 1898,
she announced the discoverey of a hitherto unknown element,
which she named "polonium" in honor of her beloved country.
The reality of this new element was at first questioned. It was
suspected to be a mixture of bismuth and some other element.
But its existence was soon confirmed.

Others might have been satisfied with this discovery of art
element hundreds of times more active than uranium But not
the Curies. They kept working with portions of that ton of
pitchblende, now boiled down to amounts small enough to fit
into a flask or test tube. This fraction of chemicals appeared
to possess properties much stronger than even polonium. Could
it be possible? Marie never doubted it She looked at this bit
of material, the residue of two years of tedious extractions by
repeated crystallizations. It was a very tiny amount; she must
be more than careful now. She examined every drop of solution
that came trickling through the filter. She tested every grain of
solid that clung to the filter paper in her funnel. Not an iota of
the precious stuff must escape her Marie and Pierre plodded
on. One night they walked to the shed. It had been a dissecting
room years ago; it was now a spookier place. Instead of "stiffs
laid out for dissection, they "saw on all sides the feebly
luminous silhouettes of the bottles and capsules containing^
their product. They were like earthly stars these glowing tubes
in that poor rough shack." They knew that they were near
their goal.

Be*mont, in charge of the laboratory at the Sorbonne, was
called in to help in the final separations. Bottle after bottle,
crystallizing dish after crystallizing dish, was cleaned until not
a speck of dust was left to contaminate the last product of their
extractions. Marie did the cleaning She was the bottle washer
who was first to gaze upon a few crystals of salt of another
new element the element radium, destined to cause greater
overturning of chemical theories than any other element that
had ever been isolated. This was the end of that long trail
under the abandoned old shed in Paris.

Pierre was given the position of professor of physics at the
Sorbonne, and Marie was put in charge of the physics lectures
at the Higher Normal School for Girls at Sevres, near Paris.
She taught, studied, worked in her laboratory and helped take
care of Irene. Baby Irene was growing up. In her spare mo-

164 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

ments Marie found time to make little white dresses. She
knitted a muffler for her, and washed and ironed the more
delicate garments. Even now she had to watch her pennies.
Pierre was superb. He helped her at every turn.

Marie was ready to study every property of the queer new
element. She intended to include this work in her thesis for
the degree of doctor of science; as a teacher she needed this
title After five more years of research, she presented her thesis.
The examining committee of professors was made up of Henri
Moissan, inventor of the electric arc, Gabriel Lippmann, de-
veloper of color photography, and Bonty. Marie presented her
complete work on radioactivity, as she named the effects pro-
duced by polonium, radium, uranium, and similar elements.
She described radium, an element millions of times more active
than uranium. Unbelievable, yet true! The professors were
astounded by the mass of original information brought out by
this woman They hardly knew what to ask. Before her, these
eminent scientists seemed mere schoolboys It was unanimously
admitted that this thesis was the greatest single contribution of
any doctor's thesis in the history of science.

The news was made public. A strange element had been dis-
covered by a woman Its salts were self-luminous; they shone in
the dark like tiny electric bulbs. They were continuously emit-
ting heat in appreciable quantities. This heat given off was two
hundred and fifty thousand times as much as that produced by
the burning of an equal weight of coal. It was calculated that
a ton of radium would boil one thousand tons of water for a
whole year. This new element was a potent poison even act-
ing from a distance A tube containing a grain the size of
a pinhead and placed over the spinal column of a mouse
paralyzed it in three hours; in seven hours the animal was in
convusions and in fifteen hours it was dead. Radium next to
the skin produced painful sores. Pierre knew this; he had vol-
untarily exposed his arm to the action of this element. Besides,
his fingers were sore and almost paralyzed from its effects.
Becquerel had complained about it to Marie. "I love it," he
had told her, "but I owe it a grudge." He had received a
nasty burn on his stomach from carrying a minute amount
of radium in a tube in his vest pocket when he went to London
to exhibit the peculiar element to the Royal Society. Its pres-
ence sterilized seeds, healed surface cancer and killed microbes.
It colored diamonds and the glass tubes in which it was kept.
It electrified the air around it, and penetrated solids.

The world marveled at the news. Here was another one of

CURIE 165

nature's surprises. Chemists were bewildered. A woman had not
only pushed back the frontiers of chemical knowledge she had
discovered a new world waiting to be explored. From every
laboratory on the face of the earth came inquiries about this
magic stone. The imagination of the world was kindled as by
no other discovery within the memory of man. Overnight the
Curies became world famous.

Then began the tramp of feet to the hiding place of the
Curies. The world was making a beaten path to the door of
these pioneers Tourists invaded Marie's lecture rooms. Jour-
nalists and photographers pursued them relentlessly. All sorts
of stories came back of this strange couple Pierre the reticent,
dreamy, publicity-hating philosopher, and Marie the sad-faced
mother who sewed and cooked and told stories to her dark little
girl. Newsmongers invaded the privacy of her home and went
so far as to report the conversation between Irene and her little
friend, and to describe the black and white cat that lived with
them. They described Mme. Curie's study,* "a writing table,
two rather hard armchairs, two others with straw bottoms, a
couple of bookcases with glass doors through which you see
volumes, papers, and vials thrown together pell mell, an iron
stove in the middle of the room. Curtains, rugs, and hangings
absent, letters and telegrams piled high on the table."

Marie and Pierre complained. "These are days when we
scarcely have time to breathe, and to think that we dreamed of
living in a world quite removed from human beings!" They
wanted to be left alone, but it was of no avail. Letters, invita-
tions, telegrams, visitors bothered and distracted them. The
world clamored for the Curies. They must come out of their
laboratory for a few hours at least. Kelvin, England's greatest
scientist, personally invited them to come to London to
receive the Davy Medal of the Royal Society.

This was only the beginning of still greater honors, many of
which they refused. They would rather have laboratories than
decorations, was Pierre's reply, on being offered the ribbon of
the Legion of Honor. Within a few months the Nobel Prize was
awarded them, to be shared with the man who had started
Marie on her triumphant research Becquerel of Paris. The
money from this prize was soon gone, to pay the debts incurred
to keep their experiments going. They could easily have
capitalized their discoveries, but they had not labored for
profit. Their work was one of pure science, their sole object
to serve humanity, and they refused emphatically to patent
then- discoveries. Almost a century before, Humphry Davy,

166 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

too, had been urged to patent his newly invented miner's
safety lamp, which could have brought him an annual income
of ten thousand dollars. He had refused. "I have enough," he
had said, "for all my views and purposes. More wealth would
not increase either my fame or my happiness."

The case of the Curies was so different. Theirs was still a
severe struggle. And yet they refused fabulous profits. Every
crystal of radium salt which they wrenched from mountains
of rock they turned over to hospitals without charge. When, in
February, 1905, they succeeded in isolating a few grains of
the new salt, they sent it to the Vienna Hospital in recognition
of the help of the Austrian Government in providing them
with the first load of pitchblende. Even that gram of radium
salt, gift of American womanhood in 1921, was willed at once
to the Institute of Radium of Paris for exclusive use in the
Laboratoire Curie,

Marie's joy had now reached the skies. Irene was now a
lovely little child of seven. Pierre had lost some of his sadness.
Things were becoming a little easier for them. Then another
baby daughter came Eve Denise. Their cup of happiness was
filled to the brim. But death was soon to stalk in the house of
the Curies. In the afternoon of the 19th of April, 1906, a mes-
senger knocked at the door of their home at 108 Boulevard
KeHennann. One of the loveliest unions in all the history of
science had come to a tragic end. A few minutes before, Pierre
had been speaking to Perrin at a reunion of the Faculty of
Sciences. They had talked about atoms and molecules and
the disintegration of matter. Pierre was on his way home. As
he was crossing Rue Dauphine a cab knocked him down, and
as he fell, the wheels of a heavy van coming from the opposite
direction passed over his head. He died instantly.

Marie listened to the story. There was no tearing of hair or
wringing of hands* Not even tears. She kept repeating in a
daze, "Pierre is dead, Pierre is dead." This blow almost struck
her down. She mourned silently. Messages of condolence came
pouring in. Rulers of nations and the most eminent scientists
of the world shared her great grief. For a time it seemed she
would never be able to resume her work. Within a few weeks,
however, she was back in her laboratory, more silent than ever.
She was to consecrate the rest of her life in the laboratory to
the memory of Pierre.

Then France made a wonderful gesture. Marie was asked to
occupy the chair of physics vacated by the death of her hus-
band. This was indeed contrary to all precedent. No woman

CURIE 167

had ever held a professorship at the Sorbonne. Tradition was
smashed. There was muffled whispering in the halls of the
University of Paris. Men with long beards shook their gray
heads against such a blunder. Some believed that whatever
inspiration there had been in her work on polonium and
radium was due to the fact that she had been working under
the guidance and stimulation of a profoundly imaginative
man, whom, furthermore, she loved very dearly. That, they
whispered behind closed doors, was the only reason for her
creative work in the past. "Wait," they said, "a few years
more, and Marie will have disappeared from the stage like a
shadow." They dare not be heard lest they wound more deeply
the broken heart of Mme. Curie. There was no open opposi-
tion. The magic word radium stilled the voices of those who
might have cried out.

Then it was announced that Mme. Curie was to lecture in
the great amphitheatre of the Sorbonne This was to be her first
lecture. Men and women from all walks of life came to Paris
to hear her, members of the Academy, the faculty of science,
statesmen, titled ladies and great celebrities. Kelvin, Ramsay
and Lodge, were among the audience President and Mme.
Falheres of France had come, and King Carlos and Queen
Amelia of Portugal were also present to do honor to this
woman. "On the stroke of three an insignificant little black-
robed woman stepped in through a side door, and the brilliant
throng rose with a thrill of homage and respect. The next
moment a roar of applause burst forth. The timid little figure
was visibly distressed and raised a trembling hand in mute
appeal. Then you could have heard a pin drop."

She began her lecture in a low, clear, almost musical voice.
There was no sign of hesitation now. She spoke French with
but a slight Polish accent. There was no oratorical burst of
enthusiasm; she was like a passionless spirit, the very per-
sonification of the search for scientific truth. Her audience ex-
pected to hear her extol the work of her predecessor. "When
we consider," she began, "the progress made by the theories of
electricity" Her listeners were spellbound. Not a word
of her great tragedy. She continued Pierre's last lecture on
polonium almost at the exact point where he had left off. When
she finished, there was a burst of applause that rang even in
the ears of the hundreds that remained outside unable to gain
admittance. None waited for the report of this historic lecture
with more eagerness than her sister Dr. Dlushka at Zakopane
in the Carpathian Mountains, and her brother Dr. Sklodowski

168 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

in the hospital of her native Warsaw. And old Mendel^eff,
dying in St. Petersburg of infected lungs, smiled again as he
received the news. Andrew Carnegie, hearing of it in America,
provided a fund to help her research students.

There were a few who still whispered about tradition, in-
spiration, women and science. They still doubted the individ-
ual greatness of Marie. She heard those faint rumors, but said
nothing. She was as silent as a sarcophagus.

The element radium must be isolated free and uncombined
with any other element. That was the task she set herself.
Debierne, boyhood friend of Pierre, was to aid her. Radium
was a stubborn element. It was difficult to pry it loose from
its chloride. And there was so little of the salt to work with!
Numerous methods of , separation 'were tried unsuccessfully.
Marie lived in the laboratory. She never took time for the
theatre or the opera; she refused all social engagements. France
hardly saw her. Finally, in 1910, Mm. Curie passed an elec-
tric current through molten radium chloride. At the negative
mercury electrode she began to notice a chemical change. An
amalgam was being formed. She skillfully gathered up this
alloy and heated it in a silica tube filled with nitrogen under
reduced pressure. The mercury boiled off as a vapor, and
before her eyes lay at last the elusive radium brilliant white
globules that tarnished in the air. This was her crowning
achievement. It was fitting that she who had first isolated its
salts should be the first to gaze on the free element itself.

Here was a piece of brilliant work performed by Marie
without Pierre beside her. The whispers were stilled forever.
For this epochal work Marie became the recipient of the Nobel
Prize for the second time, the only scientist ever so signally
honored.

Mme. Curie was persuaded to become a candidate for mem-
bership in the Academy of Sciences of Paris, which Pierre had
joined in 1905. The taboo of sex was again raised in that circle
of distinguished scientists. No woman had ever been elected to
that body. There was " an immutable tradition against the elec-
tion of women, which it seemed eminently wise to respect."
Levelheaded scientists suddenly became excited. There was
much heated discussion. Marie, of course, remained in the
background. When, on January 23, 1911, the vote was taken,
Mme. Curie failed of election by but two votes, and Edouard
Branley, inventor of the coherer used in the detection of wire-
less waves, was selected instead. France never lived down this
episode of bigotry.

CURIE 169

In the summer of 1913 Mme. Curie went to Warsaw to
found a radium institute, returning to the University of Paris
in the fall Then, in 1914, while the hordes of German soldiers
were advancing almost within sight of the Sorbonne, this brave
woman made a secret and hurried trip to Bordeaux, with a
little package safely tucked away in a handbag. While great
guns roared the opening of the Battle of the Marne, and Paris
taxicabs filled with light-blue uniformed men dashed madly out
of the city on their way to the front, this woman fled from Paris
for the South She ran away, not for fear of German bayonets,
but in dread lest the little tube she carried in her bag might
fall into the hands of the enemy When the tube of radium was
safely hidden in Bordeaux, Marie made haste to return to Paris
to do her bit for the country of her adoption. Air raids did not
disturb her now, nor the dangers of a ruthless invasion.

Mme Curie planned a great undertaking. She collected all
the available radiological apparatus in Paris; there was very
little outside of the capital She issued a call for young girls
to be trained in the use of this wonderful new tool of medicine.
One hundred and fifty girls were selected and for eight weeks
she lectured and trained them to be radiological operators.
Irene, now seventeen, who had refused to leave Paris under
bombardment, was among the volunteers.

Mme. Curie learned to drive a car and transported instru-
ments to be installed in the army hospitals. And while this
woman, then almost fifty, loaded heavy pieces of apparatus,
Irene did ambulance service near Amiens, where the old cathe-
dral shook under incessant cannonading. Irene even went into
Ypres where chlorine choked the lives out of helpless soldiers.
Mother and daughter worked like Amazons.

When the invading German army had been driven back,
Mme Curie returned to Bordeaux, packed the precious tube of
radium salt in her bag, and brought it again to Paris The first
year of the war saw the completion of the Radium Institute of
the University of Paris. Curie was made Director. In a little
room in the Institute on rue Pierre Curie, devoted to X-rays
and the extraction of radium, she worked feverishly all through
the war While the slaughter of thousands went on, Marie
worked heroically to save a few battered, shattered hulks. She
loved freedom more than she hated war, and when the peace
was signed, she declared* "A great joy came to me as a conse-
quence of the victory obtained by the sacrifice of so many
human lives. I have lived to see the reparation of more than a
century of injustice that has been done to Poland." Her native

170 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

land was now an independent country. Professor Ignace
Moscicki, who also worked with beaker and test tube in the
chemical laboratory, became President of this Republic.

In 1921 she was asked what she preferred to have most and
promptly replied: "A gram of radium under my own control/'
This woman who had given radium to mankind owned none of
the metal herself, though the world possessed one hundred and
fifty grams of it. Within a few months, however, a gram of
radium, gift of the women of America, was hers.

Eight years passed and again America showed its profound
interest in Mme. Curie. With the radium which she received
in 1921 she was also given a small annuity. This she imme-
diately used to rent some radium for a hospital in Warsaw.
While in the hospitals of New York there were fourteen grams
of the salt of this curative element, in all of Poland with its
twenty-five million inhabitants there was not a gram of this
substance. Mme. Curie felt this keenly but was powerless to
help. Her friends invited her to come to New York to receive
another gift which would enable her to give Poland a gram
of radium.

Her doctors were opposed to another trans-Atlantic trip. She
was anemic and weak Her heroic sacrifices for science had
played havoc with her strength. Yet she insisted on undertaking
this journey, and risked her life once more Her visit, however,
was made as confidential as possible. On October 15, 1929,
she arrived in New York. All red tape was cut. She was given
the freedom of the port. A distinguished delegation quietly
met her at the pier She was spared the American ordeal of
handshaking which had so distressed her on her previous visit.

President and Mrs. Hoover met this pale-faced woman at
the front door of the White House and after an informal
family dinner she was escorted to the National Academy of
Sciences. Here the President of the United States presented her
with a silver-encased draft for fifty thousand dollars, with
which to purchase a gram of radium in Belgium. Since the
discovery, in 1921, of rich radium ore deposits in upper
Katanga of the Belgian Congo, Belgium had cut the price of
radium in half. Otherwise she would have again received
American-produced radium.

During this second visit she remained in seclusion most of
the time except when she attended a few public functions. In
New York she was the guest of honor at a dinner of the Ameri-
can Society for the Control of Cancer In Detroit she took part
in the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Edison's perfection

CURIE 171

of the incandescent electric lamp. She also attended the cere-
monies in connection with the dedication of the Hepburn Hall
of Chemistry of St. Lawrence University at Canton, New York,
where a bas-relief of her was unveiled. Here the honorary
degree of Doctor of Science was added to the other degrees
which Yale, Columbia, Wellesley, Smith and the Universities
of Chicago and Pennsylvania had already conferred upon her.
Owen D. Young invited her to visit the Research Laboratories
of the General Electric Company through which she was con-
ducted by Whitney, Langmuir and W. D. Coolidge~as eminent
a triumvirate of scientists as ever graced any sanctum of science.

On November 8, she embarked for France to return once
more to the laboratory of the Curie Institute, France could not
see America outdo her m veneration for this great woman*
Before she returned, the French Government voted a million
and a half francs for the construction of a huge factory-labora-
tory for the study of radioactive elements. The plans for this
unique laboratory had been outlined by Mme. Curie and
Professor Urbain, Director of the Chemical Institute of the
University of Paris,

More than half a century has passed since presidents and
kings first came to the Sorbonne to honor this woman. Her
slow, noiseless step is no longer heard there. On July 4, 1934,
this indomitable spirit passed away, her death hastened by
the efiects of the potent salt of her creation which her long
supple fingers had fondly handled for so many years. And the
world still wonders which was greater-her epoch-making
scientific conquests, or the nobility of her self-effacing life
absorbed in the adventure of science.

XII

THOMSON

HE TRAPS THE MOTE IN A SUNBEAM

WHILE the Curies in Paris toiled in a workshop that closely
resembled the laboratories of the ancient gold cooks, in a
cloistered cell at Cambridge a group of young Englishmen
were battering down the walls that held the tiny atom intact
and indivisible. The Curies had given them the tool of power
with which to lay siege to the citadel of the atomic world.

In 1897, when the search for radium was leading the Curies
to glory, the bubble of the atom as the ultimate reality of
matter was pricked by a great Master who stood at the foun-
tainhead of a brilliant group of disciples gathered in the
Cavendish Laboratory of Experimental Physics. Chemistry had
borrowed lavishly from the storehouse of physics. Now the
great advancing problems in chemistry were questions which
the physicists were better equipped to solve, but the chemist
worked hand in hand with the physicist here was a great
scientific entente. The borderland between physics and chemis-
try was obliterated.

The Master was a man familiarly known to his students as
"J- J*" His nse in the ranks of pure science had been phe-
nomenal. J. J. Thomson was born near Manchester towards
the close of the year which witnessed the death of another
dreamer in pure science Amedeo Avogadro. While originally
wishing to become a practical engineer, his career in pure
science was due, strangely enough, to its being impossible for
him to make the necessary arrangements for engineering. He
attended Owens College, where a scholarship for research in
chemistry had recently been made possible by a fund of twenty
thousand dollars raised by the citizens of Manchester in
memory of John Dalton, architect of the atoms. From Owens
College he went to Cambridge, there to become the third of
that trinity of discoverers of the ultimate particles of matter-
Atoms, Molecules, Electrons.

At Cambridge, Lord Rayleigh was in charge of the Cavendish
Laboratory, established hardly a decade before by a descend-
ant of the family of Cavendish. Rayleigh was the successor to
the first occupant of the chair of experimental physics, James
Clerk-Maxwell, that great genius who laid the foundations of the

172

THOMSON 173

electro-magnetic theory of light Five years later Rayleigh de-
cided to resign. Asked to name his successor, he pointed without
hesitation to his most gifted pupil, Joseph John Thomson.
This news created an uproar. A lad of only twenty-eight men-
tioned as successor to Clerk-Maxwell and Rayleighl What if
Thomson had shown unmistakable signs of genius when, at
twenty-five, he had won the Adams Prize for an essay which
attacked as unscientific the theory that atoms were vortices or
whirlpools in the ether. This essay was unquestionably an
admirable presentation of the fallacies of the Vortex Theory.
But he had done very little experimentation. Most of his work
was in mathematics, and even in this field his record of honors
so far had not been the highest. In the traditional Tripos at
Cambridge, an examination for honors in mathematics, he had
come out not at the head of his group, but only as Second
Wrangler. But even Maxwell had been beaten for Senior honors.

Three eminent scientists constituted the Board of Electors
which was to make the final choice Kelvin, the Scotchman
who in Glasgow worked out the intricate problems of the
first Atlantic Cable; George Gabriel Stokes, investigator of
fluorescence; and George Howard Darwin, second son of
Charles Darwin. They saw inside that massive head of Thom-
son an imaginative yet crystal-clear mind with powerful pene-
trating power. The lad from Manchester was chosen. "Shades
of Clerk-Maxwell," declared one well-known professor, "things
have come to a pretty pass in the University of Newton when
mere boys are made professors." Michael Pupin, the eminent
American scientist, coming from a cracker factory in New York
to study physics under Clerk-Maxwell at Cambridge was
frightened away when he learned that a young lad, only two
years his senior, had been put at the head of the famous
Cavendish Laboratory.

And so it came about that a mere boy filled the chair of two
illustrious predecessors, and under his leadership the Caven-
dish Laboratory became the dominant center of scientific
research in the world. In the lightning flash which splits the
heavens Thomson saw a force in which lay the key to the
mystery of the material world. He chose as his field of research
the realm of electricity. A year before he entered Cambridge,
Thomson had heard of a peculiar glass tube or globe con-
structed by his countryman, William Crookes. By means of a
vacuum pump, Crookes drew almost all of the air out of this
tube so that only an infinitesimal fraction of the original
molecules of air remained in his sealed glass container. With

174 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

the aid of an induction coil he discharged a high voltage
current of electricity through his highly evacuated globe.

Then Crookes observed a ghostly fluorescence issuing from
the negative plate, or cathode, of the glass tube. What could
account for this spooky light? The molecules of the thin air
in his tube were illuminated by a pale, dim light, and a
greenish yellow fluorescence formed on the glass walls of the
instrument Crookes was not the first to look upon these
strange rays of light William Watson, English apothecary and
physician, almost a century and a half before had passed the
electric energy of his improved Leyden jar through a glass tube
three feet long, partly exhausted of air "It was," he recorded,
"a most delightful spectacle when the room was darkened to
see the electricity in its passage. The coruscations were of the
whole length of the tube between the plates."

But was it really light he beheld? Light, as every responsible
professor had taught, was neither ponderable nor material.
Yet these cathode rays could be made to bend under the influ-
ence of a strong electromagnet brought near the tube Crookes
was flabbergasted Light, and yet unmistakably matterl How
to reconcile the two irreconcilables? He could not.

For want of a better name, he termed these cathode rays a
fourth state of matter for it was neither gas, liquid, nor
solid. He ventured another name radiant matter. That was
the best he could do But the mystery still remained. Crookes,
as he gazed upon those cathode rays and saw the flight of
myriads of disembodied atoms of electricity, just missed dis-
covering the Electron. However, Crookes, son of a tailor, had
done valiant service. He had given mankind a new instrument
of discovery. With it Roentgen discovered X-rays, and with it
Thomson was to accomplish still greater wonders.

Thomson was to learn more about this "borderland where
Matter and Force seemed to merge into one another, that
shadowy realm between Known and Unknown." He wondered
at the cause of the undeniable bending of that beam of light
by a magnet. The stream of light was deflected as if it were
made up of so many iron filings attracted by a magnet. He
began to understand why Crookes, pulling at his long curled
mustache, had been puzzled almost to madness.

Thomson varied the conditions of his experiments. He
changed the degree of evacuation of his tubes. He used dif-
ferent cathodes, altered the intensity of electricity which was
sent through the tubes. Years passed. His data kept piling up,
and as the facts mounted, Thomson's mind, too, soared high.

THOMSON 175

In 1890, in the midst of his researches, he married Rose
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George E. Paget, and two years
later, George Paget Thomson was born to follow in the foot-
steps of his father. In 1894 he was elected President of the
Cambridge Philosophical Society, and then made a trip to
America to lecture at Princeton University on "Electrical Dis-
charges Through Matter." He was gradually evolving a new
theory. It was not to be a creed; to him any theory was only a
plan or guide to work by.

Faraday's study of electrolysis had led him to suspect atoms
of electricity and his laws of electrolysis strongly hinted at
discrete particles of electricity Helmholtz of Potsdam, in 1881,
before the Royal Institution, was actually bold enough to de-
clare that "electricity is divided into definite elementary por-
tions which behave like atoms of electricity." That same year
Thomson, at twenty-five, had measured the mass of a small
pith ball before and after electrification to determine whether
electricity possessed mass He examined the phenomenon of a
moving electric discharge and found that more work was
required to give a definite speed to an electrically charged
sphere than to the same sphere uncharged. This astonishing
result indicated to him that an electric charge possessed
inertia the distinguishing characteristic of all matter.

He was back at Cambridge now, as busy as ever. Then one
Friday evening, on the SOth of April, 1897, Joseph John Thom-
son announced to the Royal Society his epoch-making conclu-
sion of twenty years of work. "Cathode rays/* he declared,
"are particles of negative electricity.'* He denied the ultimate
reality of the atom! Since 1800 the Daltonian atom had been
regarded as the primordial substance from which every material
of the universe had been built. It had been generally accepted
as the indivisible brick of the universe. Another sacred cow
of chemistry had been slaughteredl

More than two centuries before, Robert Boyle, revered by
Englishmen as the father of chemistry, had declared the ele-
ments to be "the practical limits of chemical analysis." He
believed them to be substances "incapable of decomposition
by any means with which we are at present acquainted." But,
he added, "there may be some agent so subtle and so powerful
as to be able to resolve the compounded corpuscles into those
more simple ones, whereof they consist." Robert Boyle, of
course, never dreamed of the new chemistry and the new
physics But Thomson did. He had an abiding faith in the
simplicity of nature, "There must be something simpler than

176 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

ninety-two separate and distinct atoms of matter," he whispered
to himself. And now he had found that something!

It was the electron or corpuscle, as he had first called it.
The stream of cathode rays which the magnet had deflected was
made up of electrons, torn away from the atoms of the gas in
the tube. These electrons were part of the atom, and were alike
no matter where they originated They were negative particles
of electricity and were ponderable. The electron was also the
smallest particle of matter which moved with a velocity as
high as 160,000 miles per second Every one of the ninety-two
atoms of the chemist was built in part of these electrons.

That is what Thomson told the world. Would reputable
scientists believe him? Thomson was not a Becher, creator of
phlogiston. He was going to establish definitely the existence
of his chemico-physical monstrosity a disembodied atom of
electricity. He was going to prove its reality by calculating its
mass. No man ever set himself a more difficult task. And no
man, without the dexterity and imagination of Thomson, could
have ever hoped to succeed.

He measured the amount of bending which the cathode
stream of electrons suffered in the presence of magnets of
known strengths Through a maze of experimental details, fig-
ures and calculations, Thomson arrived at a number He had
determined the ratio of the electric charge of the electron to
its mass the "e/m," as it is called. He announced the cal-
culated mass of the electron as two thousand times less than
that of the atom of hydrogen, the lightest substance then known.

The world was not altogether convinced. True, the latter
part of the nineteenth century was bewildering in its great
scientific discoveries. Men had seen such vast miracles and
revolutions m science, that they were afraid to deny the validity
of Thomson's work. But still they doubted. After all, they said,
it was only a "calculation." Thomson himself was not satisfied.

He called in his research students. Their number had
doubled since he had been put in charge of the laboratory.
Nearly every afternoon they met in his room for tea. "J. J."
was at his best at these informal gatherings He was wonder-
fully human. Science was not the only subject discussed.
"Thomson's vigorous radical utterances were very warmly dis-
cussed and often among the cosmopolitan collection of students
political discussions became very animated " The conversation
would often turn to less serious matters. "The gossip of the
laboratory went round and a story had to be a pretty tall one
if he did not manage to cap it." John Zeleny, professor at Yale

THOMSON 177

University, vividly remembered those days when he worked
with Thomson on the mobilities of gaseous ions. "We lived,"
he recalled, "in an atmosphere sparkling with new thought,
and enjoyed a free and happy comradeship."

The Master talked over his own researches with his students.
The whole subject of the v reality of the electron was discussed.
There were two Wilsons in his laboratory at the time. Sud-
denly he turned to C.T.R. that was the way he addressed
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson. This boy, too, had originally
come from Owens College. Thomson had been watching him at
work with his "dust counter." Wilson had noticed that parti-
cles of dust acted as nuclei around which moisture condensed
as tiny droplets of water when the air was suddenly cooled by
expansion. These dust particles were too small to be photo-
graphed, but when they were surrounded by droplets of water
they became easily visible and could be photographed. He thus
devised an ingenious method of counting dust particles of
the air.

^Thomson spoke to him. He had that extraordinary gift of
stimulating originality in his students. His whole laboratory
smacked of dexterous schemes and subtle, ingenious devices for
cornering nature in its most inaccessible places. In such an
atmosphere C.T.R. had worked. Thomson asked him -this ques-
tion: "Can you photograph the elusive electron?" There was
nothing left to do but attempt it, even though it came peril-
ously near the work of a magician.

That dust counting had given Wilson some wonderful train-
ing. Perhaps an electrical particle would act in the same way
as tiny dust specks. He tried the experiment, and after in-
numerable trials he triumphed. He saw through his powerful
microscope water vapor condensing into tiny droplets around
Thomson's negatively charged particles or electrons.

And now to prove the objective reality of electrons to every
Tom, Dick and Harry of a chemist or physicist. If he could
only capture these moving particles long enough to imprint
them on a photographic platel It savored of the miraculous.
One atom, two thousand times heavier than an electroneven
a million uncharged atoms could not be photographed, yet
C. T. R. felt that he could trap a single electron. For nothing
was impossible to a disciple of the Master.

Wilson began to improve his super-camera which would
photograph an electron. It was a tremendous job. Months
passed. The Curies had discovered radium, Marie had read
her immortal thesis on radioactivity, and still he experimented.

178 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

In 1903 Thomson left for the United States for the second
time, to lecture at Yale and Johns Hopkins. He returned with
another bundle of degrees to find C.T.R. still working on his
camera. And while the Master was being honored with the
Nobel Prize and knighthood, C.T.R. still labored. Then, in
1911, the work was completed.

The whole camera was sealed in a glass chamber in which
electrons could be produced at will. When everything was in
readiness the plate was lowered into the field of the electrons,
and a photograph was taken. The vacuum in the apparatus
was destroyed, the film removed and developed. Wilson had
won again. He had arrested the flight of electrons and had
drawn their pictures. A tangled skein of threads representing
the path of single electrons after expulsion from their atoms
appeared on the plate. These fog tracks of electrons were faint,
to be sure, but they were undeniably there. Wilson had im-
prisoned a single electron, surrounded by a droplet of water,
moving dizzily through space. Here was incontestable proof
of the reality of the electron. In 1927 Wilson received the
Nobel Prize.

In the meantime, Thomson and another of his English stu-
dents, Harold A. Wilson, later professor at Rice Institute,
Houston, Texas, were attempting with the aid of C.T.R.'s
"cloud-chamber method" to isolate and determine the mass of
a single electron. They did it in a fashion, but the achievement
of this remarkable work belongs to one who, here in America,
after reading about Thomson and his school, had set out to
trap a single electron and actually measure it. One might as
well attempt to capture the mote in a sunbeam and weigh it
on a grocer's scale.

In the science laboratory of the University of Chicago
worked Robert Andrews Millikan, a man about C.T.R/s age.
He had carefully read accounts of the work already done in
the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. Then he set to work
to construct a new piece of apparatus. It consisted of two brass
plates about one-third of an inch apart. In the center of the
upper plate he bored a hole the diameter of a needle, and il-
luminated the space between the plates by a powerful beam
of light. He connected the brass plates to a battery which sup-
plied ten thousand volts.

- By means of an ordinary commercial atomizer he sprayed oil
into the air above the upper plate. These drops of oil were
one ten-thousandth of an inch in diameter. Millikan was cer-
tain that eventually one single drop of this oil spray would

THOMSON 179

find its way through the tiny hole to the space between the
plates. For hours at a time he watched this space through the
eyepiece of a powerful microscope. Suddenly he noticed,
against the black background of his field of vision, a single
neutral droplet of oil, like a glowing four-pointed star, fall
gently through that space. Millikan repeated the experiment,
and observed the similar behavior of each drop of oil. It took
half a minute to make the fall of a fraction of an inch. Re-
versing the polarity of the plates did not affect its motion.

Now he had to act quickly. He was going to strip an electron
from an atom of this neutral oil droplet. Radium could do this.
He held a small tube of radium so that its rays would strike
the oil drop. Something happened. The neutral droplet slowed
down in its fall. "When this occurred," Millikan knew, "the
droplet was no longer neutral; it had lost some of its electrons
and become positively charged." By observing the change in
speed with which it -travelled he could determine how many
electrons it had lost. He noticed that the droplet always trav-
elled at definite rates of speed. There was a certain minimum
speed. The speed would be suddenly doubled, then tripled.
"It was easy to see," wrote Millikan, "that the slowest speed was
the result of the loss of one electron. This proved conclusively
that the smallest invisible load which I was able to remove
from the droplet was actually one electron and that all elec-
trons consist of exactly the same quantity of negative elec-
tricity."

Millikan worked very accurately. His method was foolproof.
By controlling the current he was able to keep his droplets,
stripped of electrons, floating between the plate for hours
while he left his laboratory to dine or lecture. With the same
apparatus he tried another series of experiments, using drop-
lets of mercury, and even droplets of glycerine. These specks
of matter were much heavier than the oil, but the same in-
controvertible results were obtained.

By means of this electrical balance, thousands of times more
sensitive than the most delicate mechanical scale, Millikan had
isolated and determined the mass of an electron which agreed
closely with the value obtained by Thomson, i.e., eighteen hun-
dred and fifty times less than the mass of a single atom of
hydrogen.

Thomson heard of this remarkable achievement. He did not
wonder that it had taken three years of patient labor to ac-
complish. It was not at all strange that the electron had eluded
man so long. "The population of the earth is a billion and a

180 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

half," Thomson said. "The smallest number of molecules we
can identify with ordinary means is about seven thousand
times the population of the earth. In other words, if we had
no better test for the existence of a man than we have for
that of an electrified molecule we should come to the con-
clusion that the earth is uninhabited." A clear-cut analogy
from a fanciful dreamer.

What did all this mean? Just one thing. Matter and electrical
energy were one. The electron, a negative particle of electricity,
entered into the composition of every atom. But it was only
part of each atom What else composed the structure of the
atom? This question was even more difficult to answer.

We must go back once more to the Cavendisja. Laboratory,
where Thomson opened the doors of his laboratory to a few
more research students In October, 1895, within a few hours
of each other came two recruits John Sealy Townsend from
Dublin, and a twenty-four-year-old boy fresh from the Univer-
sity of New Zealand.

Ernest Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand, had come a long
way. He had heard of this ancient college whose very breath
was reverence for pure science. Here honor students from all
over the world fought valiantly for the mastery of nature.
Scions of distinguished families came from luxurious palaces
to vie with peasant boys from rolling plains and stuffy garrets.
Nowhere else in the world could one breathe this sacred
atmosphere.

Rutherford, who had received honors in mathematics and
science, had been enabled to come to England by the help of
a scholarship from home. As he caught the first glimpse of the
sacred pile of Trinity College his heart leaped. This temple
was the shrine of Newton and Maxwell. Standing before the
stained glass windows of the Chapel he vowed to make himself
worthy of these masters. Michael Pupin, a decade before, had
made that pilgrimage from America. In the forenoon of the
day of his arrival, he had seen "a monastic looking procession
of serious and thoughtful men in black caps and gowns sud-
denly change into gay groups of lively youths." The afternoon
was reserved for play. But Rutherford was not to be found in
the afternoons in white flannel trousers and gay colored blazer.
He was to work every minute of the day for four years.

Then Thomson was asked to name one of his students to
fill the chair of physics at McGill University. J.J. had a splen-
did group of twenty-five research workers in his laboratory,
Blindfolded he could have picked a man among that band

THOMSON 181

without danger of making a mistake. But to him Ernest
Rutherford was the brightest jewel. How this man could workl
Tirelessly, dexterouslywith the skilful fingers of a pianist and
the imaginative mind of a visionary. Thomson hated to lose
this dynamic being, but he realized that at Montreal, in his
own laboratory, Rutherford was bound to accomplish wonders.
Rutherford, too, was reluctant to leave there was only one J J.
But he was destined to make the trip to Canada to shed luster
on McGill University for almost ten years.

Before Rutherford left the Cavendish Laboratory he had
taken active part in the many discussions over the work of
Becquerel, Roentgen, and the Curies. Here was a virgin field
full of possibilities. He chose it, and began working with uran-
ium and thorium, a kindred element. By 1900, he had already
noticed a peculiar phenomenon in connection with the latter
substance. It gave off a minute amount of a gas very rich in
radioactivity. He carried out precise experiments to determine
the nature of the gas and found, to his astonishment, that it
was a hitherto unknown substance. He named this gas thorium
"emanation."

Rutherford, like Thomson, surrounded himself with re-
search students. He had already encountered Frederick Soddy,
originally from Oxford, but who had been appointed Demon-
strator in Chemistry at McGill University Soddy was only
twenty-three, but he had a mind as keen as Rutherford's. These
kindred spirits worked together for two years, and towards the
end of 1902 they published jointly, in the Philosophical Maga-
zine, a new theory of radioactivity.

Atoms of radioactive elements, they declared, were not stable
entities. They were constantly changing and withering away.
During this breaking down process, positive particles were
thrown off by the radioactive elements. Rutherford called these
particles alpha rays. Atoms of radium, spontaneously and ut-
terly beyond his control, were slowly flying to pieces propelled
by an internal explosion which nature alone could govern.
Neither the extreme cold of liquid air nor the intense heat
of an electric furnace influenced this disintegration. Heraclitus,
the Greek, was right, "Change was everywhere, nothing was
stable."

And now, just when Rutherford needed it most, a new in-
strument was made ready for him by the same William Crookes
who had gazed unknowingly at the flight of electrons. This
little device, inexpensive, easily manipulated, was a simple
toy which showed a world in upheaval. It consisted of a

182 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

small metal tube, one end of which contained a lens. At the
other end was a phosphorescent screen covered with a salt,
zinc sulfide. Just in front of the screen, inside the tube, was a
minute speck of radium salt on the head of a pin.

After resting his eyes in a dark chamber for fifteen minutes,
Rutherford looked through this Spinthariscope. He saw sudden
flashes of light. Every scintillation which appeared on the
screen bore testimony to the emission of an alpha particle from
the radium salt. Every flash of light reported the breaking
down of the tiny universe of a radium atom. He easily counted
the number of scintillations about two every second. He knew
the weight of radium salt on that tiny pinhead in the tube.
And from these facts Rutherford calculated the speed of the
disintegration of radium. In a gram of radium thirty-five billion
atoms of radium were disintegrating every second. This meant
that radium was losing its activity at the rate of one per cent
every twenty-five years. At the end of seventeen hundred years,
he calculated, radium would have lost half of its strength. A
slow process, yet a definite one. Soddy, back in Europe, was
in the meantime collecting alpha particles from disintegrating
radium and weighing them. His experiments led to results
corroborating Rutherford's results, and afforded convincing
evidence of the essential correctness of their data. And inci-
dentally this data enabled him to deduce values for the weight
of an individual atom.

The process of disintegration and ejection of alpha particles
took place in several others of the heaviest elements. Uranium,
for example, took four billion years for half of it to disappear.
Amazing facts backed by careful experiments, and capped by
as daring a theory as had ever been expounded. And all this
by a man scarcely out of his twenties, working with a boy of
twenty-five. The whole accepted structure of chemistry seemed
to be standing upon shifting sands! Another established belief
the immutability of atoms had been dealt a death blow.

There was a world of work still left undone. Thomson had
discovered that the negative rays given off by radioactive
elements were identical with his negative particles of electricity
or electrons. Rutherford wondered what the positively charged
alpha particles might be. Why did all radioactive substances
eject these particles? He knew that alpha particles moved with
tremendous speeds and could penetrate thin paper. They could
even pass through very thin glass, although the walls of an
ordinary tube stopped their flight. He was going to trap these
alpha particles, and examine them by means of a spectroscope

THOMSON 183

which detected one-tenth of a millionth of a gram of a metal.

Rutherford was another Thomson. One who knew him well
thus described him. "He is a man resembling the alpha particle
in his local concentration of energy. He is inimical to leisure.
He can arouse enthusiasm in anything short of a cow or a
cabinet minister. Frank and genial, he can discuss almost any
subject and smoke almost any tobacco."

As a source of alpha particles, Rutherford took some radium
emanation. It was not a simple task to construct the apparatus
he planned. He broke hundreds of tubes and tried different
kinds of glass, until finally he made a double tube, one sealed
inside the other. Rutherford filled the inner tube, an extremely
thin one, with emanation before sealing it to the outer tube.
After two days he examined the space between the tubes,
which had been carefully exhausted of all gas. Only alpha
particles could penetrate the thin walls of the inner tube and
get into this void. Yet what was his astonishment when the
spectroscope showed unmistakable evidence of the presence
of helium gas between the tubes. He tried the experiments a
number of times. Yes, it was true! The alpha particles had
passed through the thin walls and were identified as atoms of
helium. He announced the identity of alpha particles as
positively charged atoms of helium. Here was a significant re-
velation, and it was accepted. The world had learned to believe
this man. When Thomson at Cambridge heard of this master-
ful proof, he shook his massive head, and thought with pride
of this human powerhouse. Rutherford's contributions to
science were recognized by King George V and he was knighted,
as his Master had been ten years before.

Just before the outbreak of World War I thirty different
researches were going on at the same time in Thomson's labora-
tory at Cambridge. Nearly all of them related to the fascinating
problem of the structure of the atom. Suddenly the Cavendish
Laboratory ceased to be the busy hive of research students
fighting a battle against the atomic world. Almost overnight
the men scattered to do more pressing government service. The
laboratory was turned into a factory for the manufacture of
pressure gauges, and Thomson and Rutherford devoted them-
selves to war work. With the ending of hostilities Thomson,
at sixty-two, retired as head of the Cavendish Laboratory to
become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Rutherford was
selected to succeed him. He was ready to perform a research
which stands as his crowning achievement.

Ever since Thomson had discovered the electron as part of

184 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

every atom, Rutherford had pondered over the nature o the
rest of the atom. His study of radioactivity had revealed a little.
Surely, he thought, there must be in the neutral atom of all
elements some positive electricity to counteract the negative
electron. Thomson had postulated this theory. Arrhenius,
fighting for his ions, had spoken of positively electrified atoms
in solution. Even Berzelius, a century before, had introduced
the idea o electrically polarized atoms. Was this positive
electricity distributed throughout the whole atom or was it
concentrated in the tiny center or nucleus of the atom? To
find the answer to this problem the imaginative mind of Ruth-
erford soon hit upon an ingenious method of attack.

If he was to conquer the inner citadel or nucleus of the
atom he must use projectiles small enough to enter it. Yet his
projectiles must be powerful enough to disrupt the most stable
thing in the universe. The mightiest battering ram ever used by
man must be puny in comparison to the energy of the bullet
which he must use. He knew all about the alpha particle. He
had identified and christened it. He understood its colossal
powers. It possessed the greatest individual energy of any
particle known to science seven million electron volts. The
mass of this tiny positive particle of helium was eight thousand
times as much as that of an electron. It was ejected from
radium with the stupendous velocity of twelve thousand miles
per second, a speed which would bring us to the sun, ninety
three million miles away, in a little more than two hours. It
moved three hundred times faster than a meteor. He was going
to shoot this alpha particle through nitrogen gas.

In 1911, with the aid of C.T.R/s camera, Rutherford photo-
graphed the path of the alpha particles he shot through nitro-
gen. Due to the great difference in weight, "an electron would
have little more effect on an alpha particle than a fly on a
rifle bullet/' He expected his alpha particles to pass through .
the nitrogen undisturbed. The fog tracks of the alpha particles
ought to be straight lines. Thousands of the tracks did turn
out to be straight. But here in. the picture was one which
seemed suddenly to have been thrown off its course. The
alpha particle, submicroscopic projectile, must have struck
something heavy and stable enough to turn the mighty bullet
off its direct path. Or, perhaps, the positively charged alpha
particle had approached dose enough to some massive nucleus,
similarly charged, which repelled and deflected it through an
angle close to 180 at times. To be sure, the alpha particle
had ploughed its way a distance of more than two inches

THOMSON 185

through tens of thousands of nitrogen atoms before it was
deflected. There must be, he concluded, something very solid
in the center of the atom to twist the flight of a projectile
with an energy four hundred million times that of a bullet.

Of what was this heavy central core of the atom of nitrogen
composed? Rutherford suspected it might be a group of posi-
tively charged hydrogen atoms, for he had found them after
the bombardment. He was certain there was no other way to
explain their presence. It was difficult enough to isolate, photo-
graph and determine the mass of an electron. The positive part
of the atom was even more resistant to investigation. With the
help of his young assistants, Hans Geiger, E. Marsden, and
James Chadwick, he continued to bombard the atoms of other
elements. They used three metals, sodium, gold, and aluminum,
and then a non-metal, phosphorus. In every case positively
charged hydrogen atoms (protons) were ejected from the
nucleus of the atom. The spectroscope had positively revealed
hydrogen to them. There was no other conclusion to draw.
This charged atom of hydrogen must be present in the nucleus
of all atoms.

Here was the counterpart of the negative electron. This posi-
tive charge of electricity was like the electron; it could be
deflected by powerful magnets, it obeyed the same laws,. The
great difference between them lay in their different masses
the positive particles in the nucleus were almost two thousand
times as heavy as the electron. A few months later, at the
Cardiff meeting of the British Association in Wales, Ruther-
ford christened the new arrival proton, just as twenty-two years
before Thomson had announced the discovery of the electron.

Here was one of Rutherford's greatest completed contribu-
tions to science. He gave us a new picture of the structure of
the atom an atom resembling the solar system with its massive
nucleus of positive electricity around which, at a relatively
great distance from this sun, revolved small planetary electrons.
The atom was a tiny universe made up of nothing but negative
electrons and positive protons. During these researches Ruther-
ford made another classic contribution. In 1919 he accom-
plished the first artificial transmutation in history. He changed
nitrogen into oxygen, and made one of the dreams of ancient
alchemy come true. During his bombardment of nitrogen with
swiftly moving alpha particles (helium ions) the nucleus o
the nitrogen atom was penetrated and a hydrogen ion or
proton was ejected changing nitrogen into oxygen. This may
be represented thus:

186 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Nitrogen -f- Helium Hydrogen -f Oxygen

14 + 4 > 1 + 17

(atomic weights)

A few years before his death a dinner was given at Cam-
bridge in honor of Thomson. Disciples who had passed through
his laboratory during the last half century were now spread
over the world in many schools and laboratories. None of them
had forgotten the cherished years of his comradeship and in-
spiration. A paper was delivered to the Master of Trinity Col-
lege: "We, the past and present workers in the Cavendish
Laboratory, wish to congratulate you on the completion of
your seventieth year. We remember with pride your contribu-
tions to science, and especially your pioneer work in the
structure of the atom/' It was signed by two hundred and
thirty men, among whom could be counted the greatest
geniuses of our time, including five Nobel Prize winners in
science.

Ernest Rutherford, Thomson's most eminent pupil, was
present as toastmaster. He read a few of the telegrams of con-
gratulation which poured in. They made a simple, inspiring
tribute. From Copenhagen came the voice of Niels Bohr,
another Nobel laureate, extolling J.J. for "having opened the
gates to a new land." George E. Hale of the Mt. Wilson
Observatory in California wrote a message of good cheer as
he scanned the heavens for new stars. Millikan, measurer of
the electron, sent a message expressing the conviction that
Thomson's electron would "probably exert a larger influence
upon the destinies of the race than any other idea which has
appeared since Galileo's time." It was no inflated compliment
to link the names of Galileo Galilei and Joseph Thomson.
Thomson had given to the world its knowledge of the smallest
entity in the whole universe. This tiniest of all things is
omnipresent.

There sat its discoverer, still mentally alert, with the same
characteristic smile the same human yet almost godlike J.J.
Through the great gathering of eminent scientists and philos-
ophers the spirit of that young, old man was dominant. Sud-
denly the voice of the assembly burst forth in the song of the
Jolly Electron:

There was a jolly electron alternately bound and

free
Who toiled and spun from morn to night, no snark so

lithe as he,

THOMSON 187

And this the burden of his song forever used to be:
I care for nobody, no, not I, since nobody cares
for me.

Though Crookes at first suspected my presence on this

earth

'Twas J.J that found me in spite of my tiny girth.
He measured first the "e by m" of my electric worth:
I love J.J. in a filial way, for he it was gave me birth.

Then Wilson known as C.T.R. his camera brought to

bear,
And snapped me (and the Alphas too) by fog tracks

in the air.
We like that chap! For a camera snap is a proof

beyond compare:
A regular star is C.T.R. we'd follow him anywhere.

'Twas Johnstone Stoney invented my new ekctric

name,
Then Rutherford, and Bohr too, and Moseley brought

me fame.
They guessed (within the atom) my inner and outer

game.

You'll all agree what they did for me
I'll do it for them, the same.

And as the strains of those verses, sung to the tune of the
Jolly Roger, echoed through that room, the Master still
dreamed of other scientific conquests. He continued his
scientific work almost to the day of his death, which the world
heard about on August 30, 1940. A vast amount of new in-
formation had come out of countless laboratories since that
day when the electron was born. The giant new field of elec-
tronics has since been developed and expanded upon our
ever growing knowledge of this powerful and versatile entity.
New tools and machines such as the cathode ray oscillograph,
the betatron, and the electron microscope, radio, television,
and radar equipment were all born from the electron.

Now that Thomson is no longer here and the time has come
to erect a monument to him, "perhaps the noblest symbol that
could be placed thereon would be e/m"

XIII

MOSELEY
THE WORLD IS MADE OF NINETY-TWO

IT HAS BEEN the fate of some men to accomplish in their youth
a work of surpassing importance, and then to have their
career suddenly cut short by a great catastrophe. Such is the
story of Henry Moseley, whose life work was done in less than
four years Before the world had heard of him, he was gone.

In the summer of 1914, while the English school of scientists
was hot on the trail of the mystery of the chemical elements,
one of Professor Townsend's students at Oxford stopped to say
good-by to him. The boy was to board a steamer that morning
for Australia to take part in the forthcoming meetings of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science. With him
was his mother Amabel, later the wife of William Johnson
Sollas, professor of geology at Oxford.

The arrival of mother and son in Australia coincided with
England's declaration of war against Germany. Moseley would
have enlisted at once, but he had certain engagements to fill.
He had just completed an astounding piece of research which
threw a flood of light on the inner structure of the atom. Two
weeks after Britain's entry into the war, he took part in the
great scientific discussion at Melbourne led by Ernest Ruther-
ford, and a week later, at Sydney, read his paper on the nature
of the elements.

As soon as the Australian meeting of the British Association
was over, Moseley hastened home to offer his services to the
government. He could work at home, he was told, in one of
the war research laboratories, but he refused. He wanted active
service at the front. So during the madness of those early war
days he was granted a commission in the Royal Engineers.

On June 13, 1915, Moseley was already on his way to the
front at Gallipoli as signalling officer in the 38th Brigade
of the First Army. He had a charm of manner, a frankness
and fearlessness, that endeared him to his men and fellow
officers in trench and billet. His letters to his mother from the
East were full of cheer. He wrote nothing of the hardships and
terrors of the campaign in the Dardanelles. Rather he sent her
messages of his observations of nature as he rambled over the
hills near the trenches. Like his father, he was a keen and ob-

188

MOSELEY 189

servant naturalist. As a boy he had known most every bird and
bird's nest in the neighborhood of his home. He had also been
greatly interested m prehistoric implements, and on holidays,
on the Isle of Wight, he used to search the blue clay deposits
with his mother or sister, and found some excellent specimens
which are now in the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. During
one vacation he picked up a very beautiful arrowhead in a
small cairn in the Shetland Isles. Moseley had been very proud
of this specimen and showed it to his friend, Julian Huxley,
when he came down from Balliol College to spend his vacation
with him. Charles Galton Darwin joined them at times, and the
three boys, all of the same age, grandchildren of three famous
scientists who had made these very rocks and stones tell weird
stories of the birth of the world, were now immersed in a great
world struggle.

In less than two months Harry's letters to his mother ceased*
From one of his fellow officers came the dreadful news- "Let
it suffice to say that your son died the death of a hero, sticking
to his post to the last. He was shot through the head, and death
must have been instantaneous. In him the brigade has lost a
remarkably capable signalling officer and a good friend; to
him his work always came first, and he never let the smallest
detail pass unnoticed/'

Little did this officer realize the greater tragedy that occurred
when young Moseley was stricken at Suvla Bay as he lay tele-
phoning to his division that the Turks, two hundred yards
away, were beginning to attack. But there were many who
realized the colossal loss. Said Millikan: "In a research which
is destined to rank as one of the dozen, most brilliant in con-
ception, skilful in execution, and illuminating in results in the
history of science, a young man twenty-six years old threw open
the windows through which we can glimpse the subatomic
world with a definiteness and certainty never dreamed of
before. Had the European War had no other result than the
snuffing out of this young life, that alone would make it one
of the most hideous and most irreparable crimes in history."
As Moseley lived so he died, bequeathing in his soldier's will
made on the battlefield all his scientific apparatus and private
wealth to the Royal Society for the furtherance of scientific
research.

When Harry was four years old his father, Henry Nottidge
Moseley, professor of comparative anatomy at Oxford, died.
He was a very strong man, never fatigued by either physical
or mental exertion, but he had lately overworked and began

190 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

to suffer from cerebral sclerosis. When his end came in 1891,
the upbringing and education of the boy was left entirely in
the hands of his wonderful mother. So well did she prepare
him that at the age of thirteen he entered Eton with a King's
scholarship.

His life and experiences at school were those of an ordinary
healthy English boy. He early showed his liking for mathe-
matics, and when he went to a boarding school at the age of
nine, it was found that he knew the rudiments of algebra,
although he had never been taught them. In the home school
room he had sat, presumably writing copies which did not
interest him, and instead listening to his two elder sisters being
taught the beginnings of algebra, which he found very enter-
taining. This genius for mathematics was later to aid him in his
great research.

After five years at Eton he entered Trinity College, Oxford,
with a Millard scholarship in natural science. He had also done
brilliantly in the classics; his mind was not lopsided. Harry
exhibited the gifts of his distinguished family. His father had
such keen intellectual powers that it was said he had only to
be put down on a hillside with a piece of string and an old nail
and in an hour or two he would have discovered some natural
object of surpassing importance. His grandfather, Henry Mose-
ley, had been a celebrated mathematician, physicist and astron-
omer at Kings College, London. On his mother's side, his
grandfather, John Gwyn Jeffreys, had been an eminent ocean-
ographer and authority on shells and mollusks. His elder sister,
Mrs. Ludlow Hewitt, distinguished herself at Oxford in biology
and contributed a valuable paper on a new subject in science,
the rudimentary gill of the crayfish.

Before Harry graduated with honors in natural science, he
was dreaming of a career in pure science. He made a visit to
Ernest Rutherford at Manchester. This famous teacher saw in
him one of those rare examples of a born investigator. He sug-
gested his own first loveradioactivity. Harry was jubilant.
He returned home with the thought of this research burning in
his mind, and a year later, upon his graduation from Oxford,
he proceeded at once to Rutherford's laboratory. Here he soon
became so engrossed in his work that he resigned from his lec-
tureship at the University to give every minute of his time to
his experiments.

He was now working hard at Manchester. He used to come
down to his mother's home of a rare weekend. His mother had
bought a piece of land close to the New Forest in southwestern

MOSELEY 191

England, and had a little home built, the plans of which were
made by Harry when he was eighteen, and accepted as work-
able by the builder. He took great delight in the new garden:
around the house, which was simply a piece of heather land,
and planned and arranged this garden entirely himself^ He
planted it with many rare and unusual trees and shrubs. Noth-
ing gave him more enjoyment than to see his garden growing
up and doing well. "The only trees which did not succeed,"
wrote his mother from Banbary Road, "were a row of Sophoras,
made in Germany, as we said, for the English nurserymen
having none in stock had imported them for us. He (Harry)
always left me with many garden tasks to carry out in view
of improvements."

Moseley had the good fortune to be trained under the guid-
ance of a master experimenter. When Moseley came to him,
Rutherford mapped out a definite line of work. First he was to
perform some very accurate measurements. He set him the
task of finding out the number of electrons emitted during the
disintegration of radium, and Moseley lived up to the ex-
pectations of his teacher. Before the Royal Society the follow-
ing year he announced that, on the average, every atom of
radium produced but one electron William Crookes, President
of the Society, listened to this clear, fluent speaker and com-
plimented the young man on his simple presentation of so
difficult a problem.

Moseley then played with a problem concerning the life of
an emanation of actinium, one of the radioactive elements.
This period was so short that special, delicate devices had to
be constructed to detect it. Together with the Polish scientist,
K. Fajans, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Munich,
he solved the question. The average life of the emanation was
less than one five-hundredth of a second.

The following year, he was busy on another ticklish bit of
research. He was trying to determine whether any limit could
be set to the strength of the electric charge of an insulated
body containing radium. As radium continued to lose negative
electrons, it became more and more strongly charged positively.
What could be the limit of this positive charge? The difficulties
to be overcome were tremendous, but Harry went serenely
along as if he were playing some simple game. The radium by
losing electrons kept building up a difference of potential in
the vacuum tube until it had reached one hundred thousand
volts. This charge he was able to increase until the radium
emanation withered away and disappeared.

192 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Now news reached the scientific world that Max von Laue
o the University of Zurich had discovered a peculiar property
of crystals when exposed to X-rays, X-rays, consisting of ex-
tremely short waves in the ether (ten thousand times smaller
than those of ordinary light), are produced when a stream of
electrons falls upon the metal reflector of a Crookes tube. Max
von Laue found that pure crystals of salt split up X-rays like
light the minute spaces between the atoms of the crystals act-
ing like a grating and producing an X-ray spectrum. William
Henry Bragg and his son, William Lawrence, using this dis-
covery, developed a method which enabled them to deter-
mine the inner structure of pure salts. X-rays were allowed to
pass through very thin sections of crystals and then photo-
graphed. They found that crystals were made up of regularly
spaced rows of atoms, (not molecules), about one twenty-
millionth of an inch apart. From mathematical calculations,
the Braggs made a real pattern of the crystal in three dimen-
sions. Moseley followed closely these experiments of the father
and son at Leeds. Then he and Darwin, his boyhood chum,
photographed the X-rays produced by electrons striking the
positively charged platinum plate of a Crookes tube and then
passing through a crystal grating. Here was the germ of the
classic research which was to bring Moseley, the modern crystal
gazer, imperishable fame.

Shortly before Laue's discovery, Rutherford had been led to
propound a theory of the nucleus of the atom. He believed
that the main mass of the atom was concentrated in a tiny
nucleus of positive hydrogen atoms surrounded by enough
electrons to make the atom electrically neutral. He had reached
this deduction while trying to find the counterpart of the elec-
tron in the atom. His delicate experiments on the scattering of
alpha particles as they were shot through gases had resulted in
the dispersion of these tiny masses. From the angle and in-
tensity of deflection he had calculated the positive charge in
the nucleus of the atom. In 1911, with the aid of his students,
Geiger and Marsden, he actually determined the number of
positive charges in the atoms of gold and other elements and
found them to be equal to approximately one-half their atomic
weights. The greater the atomic weight of the element, the
greater was the positive charge in the nucleus.

Rutherford ventured a prophetic hypothesis. "The charge in
the nucleus of every element," he said, "ought to be
proportional to the atomic weight of the element." Could this
guess stand the critical test of experiment?

MOSELEY 193

This was a problem for the most brilliant of his students.
He called Moseley into conference. Rutherford was like his old
Master at Cambridge. They discussed this research thoroughly,
and before Moseley left him a decision had been reached
X-rays were known to be of two kinds. The first was due merely
to the stoppage of electrons. The second was sent out from
the anticathode of a Crookes tube and depended upon the
metal or metals of which the anticathode was composed. Charles
G. Barkla, then of the University of London, had discovered
this atomic phenomenon and had determined the length and
penetrating power of these rays by absorbing them in very thin
sheets of metallic aluminum a research which earned him the
Nobel prize in 1917. Moseley was to compare the photographs
of the X-ray spectra of different elements, and thus help deter-
mine the nature of the electric charge in their nuclei.

He worked in his laboratory day and night. If genius is an
infinite capacity for taking pains, as Carlyle believed, then
Harry Moseley possessed genius. "His powers of continuous
work were extraordinary, and he showed a predilection for
turning night into day. It was not unusual for an early arrival
at the laboratory to meet Moseley leaving after about fifteen
hours of continuous and solitary work through the night. This
trait he inherited from his father no doubt."

Moseley fixed a metal plate at the anticathode of a Crookes
tube. This metal acted as target for a stream of electrons sent
out from the cathode, or negative pole. When the metal was
thus excited it emitted its characteristic X-rays. These rays were
then allowed to fall as a narrow beam on a crystal mounted
on the table of a spectroscope. The reflected rays were then
photographed. Moseley perfected this new method of photo-
graphing X-ray spectra.

Now he was ready to repeat this procedure with as many
elements as could be treated in this manner. Above aluminum
in the Periodic Table were twelve elements which could not be
adapted to this method of attack. He started with the thir-
teenth element, the metal aluminum. He invented an in-
genious device to speed up his experimental observations. He
arranged a series of plates of the different elements on a
movable platform in the Crookes tube so that every one of
these elements could easily be made the anticathode. This
piece of apparatus delighted him. He was like a boy amusing
himself with some mechanical contraption of his own inven-
tion.

Formidable problems presented themselves at every turn.

194 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

When he imagined he had overcome the most difficult part of
his experiment another problem presented itself. To avoid
absorption of the X-rays, the whole photographic apparatus,
including crystal and spectroscope, had to be enclosed in a glass
vessel exhausted of air. Again, with characteristic energy, he
accomplished an almost impossible job,

He worked with such breathless activity that within six
months he had examined the X-ray spectra of thirty-eight ele-
ments, from aluminum to gold. Moseley studied the results
of his measurements. Different elements gave rise to X-rays of
different wave lengths. He confirmed a definite relationship
the heavier the element the shorter and more penetrating
the X-rays produced. He arranged all his figures on graph
paper. He plotted the numbers of the elements, representing
their position in Mendel^eff's table, against the inverse square
roots of the vibration frequencies of their X-rays. The elements
actually arranged themselves on a straight line in the exact
order of their atomic weights.

Moseley went back to Oxford now to live nearer his mother.
Townsend gave him a private room in his laboratory where
he could work quietly and independently. Here he com-
pleted his last research in science. What could these figures and
graphs mean? Moseley heard the weak whisper of Nature yield-
ing another of her secrets. The whisper gradually became
louder. A strange story was told to young Moseley: "There is
in the atom a fundamental quantity which increases by regular
steps as we pass from each element to the next. This quantity
can only be the charge on the central positive nucleus."

In 1912, at the age of twenty-six, Moseley published his
results he had discovered the Law of Atomic Numbers. He
prepared a new Table of the Elements more fundamental
than that of his Russian predecessor. He gave the world an
infallible road map of all the elements of the universe a chart
based, not on atomic weights, but on atomic numbers. Men-
dele*eff s romantic blue-prints had served science for fifty years.
Now a new and more enduring structure was reared, fashioned
by the cunning brain of a youth.

The first element in his Table was hydrogen, with an atomic
number of one; uranium, with an atomic number of 92, was
the last element. For the first time, a scientific limit to the
number of building blocks of the universe was set. There
could be no other elements besides these ninety-two, said
Moseley. It was an astounding declaration.

His Table of Atomic Numbers brought a new harmony into

MOSELEY 195

the classification of the elements. It helped determine the pro-
per placing of a number of elements which MendeleefFs Table
could not explain. He found the atomic number of potassium
to be 19, while that of argon was 18, even though their ac-
cepted atomic weights called for the reverse order. The posi-
tions of cobalt and nickel, and iodine and tellurium, were
similarly corrected. The discrepancies of MendeleefFs Table
had been ignored for the sake of harmony. Atomic numbers
were immensely more fundamental. They were absolutely
trustworthy; not an error could be detected.

When the news of Moseley's discovery reached France,
Georges Urbain of the University of Paris rushed to Oxford
to meet this man. Urbain, sculptor, musician and eminent
authority on rare elements, was baffled by a number of elements
found in certain Scandinavian ores, in the sands of North
Carolina, and the igneous granite of the Ural Mountains.
Between the elements barium and tantalum were fifteen others
so closely allied in properties that it was extremely difficult to
separate them completely. These fifteen elements were the "rare
earths." Mendeleeff had been confronted by them when he
arranged his Periodic Table. He admitted the "position of the
rare earths to be one of the most difficult problems offered to
the Periodic Law." He could find no place for them in his list
of the elements,

No one had found a way to clarify this forbidding group
of mysteries lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium,
samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, hol-
mium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutecium. Crookes had
expressed the situation confronting chemists rather pessimisti-
cally: "The rare earths perplex us In our researches, baffle us
in our speculations, and haunt us in our very dreams. They
stretch like an unknown sea before us, mocking,^ mystifying,
and murmuring strange revelations and possibilities."

Moseley's Table of Atomic Numbers had places for all of
these fifteen elements. They fitted beautifully into spaces 57
through 71. His work on the X-ray spectra of the elements had
settled once and for all time the position and number of the
rare earths. This in itself was a remarkable achievement.

Perhaps Moseley could help unravel the mess of the rare
earths with his new method of analysis. Urbain handed the
young Englishman an ore containing an unknown number
of the rare earths mixed together in minute amounts. "Tell
me," said Urbain, "what elements are present." Moseley did
not keep him waiting long. His mystic crystal was at his side.

196 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

He went through some strange, dexterous movements with his
spectroscope, followed by short rapid calculations on paper.
Turning to the French savant, Moseley told him the complete
story of the rare earths which had taken Urbain months of
laborious analytical operations to find out for himself. Erbium,
thulium, ytterbium and lutecium, of atomic numbers 68, 69,
70, and 71, were present, but the element corresponding to
61 was absent.

Urbain was astounded! He returned to France, marvelling
at the brilliancy of such a lad. When, a year later, Urbain
received Rutherford's letter notifying him of the death of
Moseley, the French scientist recalled his memorable visit.
"I had been very much surprised when I visited him at Oxford
to find such a very young man capable of accomplishing such
a remarkable piece of work. The law of Moseley confirmed in
a few days the conclusions of my efforts of twenty years of
patient work."

In Moseley's Table were gaps for seven missing elements
with atomic numbers of 43, 61, 72, 75, 85, 87, and 91. Since
Mendel^efFs death not a single one of these elements had
been discovered. After the appearance of Moseley's work,
however, all of these gaps were filled. Moseley had worked out
the X-ray spectra of these hidden elements and prophesied that
"They should not be difficult to find." His predictions were ful-
filled, for others followed his ingenious line of attack. In 1917
the existence of element No. 91, the eka-tantalum of Men-
deteeff's Table, was established. Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner
in Berlin discovered it, and the new element was named prot-
actinium. It was isolated as a pure metal in 1934 by Aristid
V. Grosse in Germany. In 1923 Georg von Hevesy and Dirk
Coster, working in the laboratory of Niels Bohr in Copen-
hagen, discovered hafnium, element No. 72, in an ore of
zirconium, which very closely resembled it. One of the first
specimens of this new element to be isolated was deposited in
the American Museum of Natural History. It is not an ex-
tremely rare element; cyrtolite, an ore found near New York,
contains as much as five per cent of hafnium. It constitutes
one part in 100,000 of the crust of the earth, yet it had re-
mained hidden so long because of its close resemblance to
other elements of the rare earths. Then in 1925, Walter Nod-
dack and Ida Tacke of Berlin announced rhenium, missing
element No. 75/brought to light by the X-ray spectrum analy-
sis of Moseley.

In 1937 Perrier, Segre, and Cacciapuoti prepared an isotope

MOSELEY 197

of element No. 43. This radioactive element was later named
technetium. Two years went by when from the Radium In-
stitute of Paris came the report of the discovery of a radio-
active isotope of element No. 87. Its discoverer, Mile,
Marguerite Percy, named it francium after her native land.
The following year element No. 85 was obtained by Emilio
Segre and associates at the University of California and named
astatine. Tmally, in 1945, the last of the 92 natural elements
was reported by J. A. Marinsky and L. E. Glendenin at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and named promethium.

When Mendele"eff announced the Periodic Table of the Ele-
ments, he frankly stated, 'It has been evolved independently
of any conception as to the nature of the elements. It does
not in the least originate in the idea of a unique matter and
it has no historical connection with that relic of the torments
of classical thought/' He was alluding to the ancient idea of the
unity of all matter. Plato had said "Matter is one." Sporadi-
cally, this idea of a primordial substance from which every-
thing else originated had been enunciated by philosophers and
pseudo-scientists. The world paid little attention to their
abstract conclusions.

Then, in 1815, there was printed in the Annals of Philosophy
a paper in which the writer suggested that the protyle of the
ancients was really hydrogen. The author had calculated the
atomic weights of a number of elements and had found them
to be whole numbers, multiples of the atomic weight of hydro-
gen Thus he listed the atomic weights of zinc, chlorine and
potassium as 32, 36 and 40. When he was confronted with a
number of elements whose atomic weights were far from
integers, he considered the accepted weights erroneous, and de-
clared that the future, with improved methods of analysis,
would prove the atomic weights of these elements also to be
whole numbers.

Had the author of this idea been Berzelius, he might have
created more than a slight ripple. But the anonymous writer
proved to be a young English physician, William Prout. His
theory that all the elements were formed by various unknown
condensations of hydrogen was not taken seriously. His theory,
however, acted temporarily as a ferment. Berzelius, and later
the eminent Belgian chemist, Jean Servais Stas, carried out
some extremely accurate atomic weight measurements. This
search of the fourth decimal place of atomic weights brought
to light many cases of atomic weights which were unmistakably
far away from whole numbers. "I have arrived at the absolute

198 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

conviction," declared Stas, "that the law of Prout is nothing
but an illusion, a mere speculation definitely contradicted by
experience." The world of chemistry settled back again and
forgot Prout and his protyle. Prout returned to his practice
of medicine in London. He made another bid for fame a few
years later when he announced the discovery and importance
of hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice, and then for nearly
a century the name of Prout remained forgotten.

Moseley's epochal work on atomic numbers suddenly brought
Prout's theory back from the limbo of the past. Perhaps, after
all, the idea of the oneness of the elements was not all twaddle.
Had not J. J. Thomson shown the electron to be common to
all elements? And Rutherford had proven beyond the shadow
of a doubt that charged hydrogen atoms were present in
the nuclei of all the elements. The great harvest of experi-
mentation of the last fifteen years made it appear almost
certain that all the elements were closely related. And now
Moseley peeped into the kernel of the atoms and confirmd
Rutherford's assumption of the number of protons, or posi-
tively charged hydrogen atoms, inside these different atoms.

Prout's conclusions seemed more plausible now. "If the
views we have ventured to advance be correct," Prout had
written, "we may consider the protyle of the ancients to be
realized in hydrogen." Surely all evidence pointed to the
presence of hydrogen in the nuclei of all atoms. But there was
still a great barrier to the acceptance of this belief. If all the
atoms were composed of condensations or multiples of hydro-
gen, then every element should have an atomic weight equal
to some perfect integer, since the atomic weight of hydrogen
was one. There could be no place for fractional atomic weights.
How could one explain away the atomic weight of chlorine,
known to be 35.46, or of lead, fixed at 207.2? Surely these
fractional atomic weights could not be the result of experi-
mental errors.

What a powerful weapon could be forged by a clear scientific
explanation of the apparent inconsistencies of Prout's theory.
Pregnant doubts and questions had already been raised.
Crookes, in 1886, addressing the British Association at Bir-
mingham, had made a bold and original statement. "I conceive
that when we say the atomic weight of calcium is 40, we really
explain the fact, while the majority of calcium atoms have an
actual atomic weight of 40, there are not a few which are
represented by 39 or 41, a less number by 38 or 42, and
so on."

MOSELEY 199

It was an audacious speculation and coming from one of
the most eminent scientists of England, it had to be seriously
considered. Could it really be possible that Dalton was wrong
that all the atoms of the same element were not alike in
weight, although similar in properties? Was it really true that
what chemists for a hundred years had considered the un-
changeable atomic weights of the elements were only the aver-
age relative weights of different atoms? Lavoisier had said,
"An element is a body in which no changes cause a diminution
in weight." Was he really in error?

Paul Schutzenberger's study of the rare earths during the
close of his life led him to recognize the possibility of different
atoms of the same element. Curie's radium and radioactivity
provoked more doubts and misgivings. The discovery of ionium,
identical in chemical properties with thorium and almost
similar to it in weight, had for a long time defied the labors
of chemists. The following year mesothorium I was isolated
and found to be chemically the same as radium, but differing
from it slightly in weight Emanations and other radioactive
elements seemed to lend proof to the speculations of Crookes.
Perhaps atomic weights were really averages of atoms whose
weights were actually whole numbers. Ramsay declared that
the existence of such a large number of elements with atomic
weights very nearly whole numbers, was not an accident. The
chances were a billion to one that this was fortuitous, he said.
By 1910, many levelheaded, serious-minded researchers began
to whisper the thoughts of Crookes. Frederick Soddy, co-author
with Rutherford of the revolutionary theory of radium dis-
integration, spoke out boldly in favor of Crookes* idea of
mixtures of atoms.

At the British Association meeting in Birmingham the year
before the opening of World War I, a paper was presented
on the homogeneity of neon there were some doubts as to
whether its atomic weight was constant. Soddy, too, standing
in the forefront of the new battle, started a great discussion. He
had found two samples of a radioactive element with identical
physical and chemical properties yet differing in atomic weights.
Theodore W. Richards, the first American to receive the Nobel
Prize in chemistry, had also investigated the subject of chang-
ing atomic weights and found ordinary lead to have an atomic
weight of 207.20, while that of lead from a radioactive uranium
ore from Norway was 206.05. No one could doubt these figures;
Richards was the most accurate investigator of atomic weights
of his generation.

200 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Soddy came out firmly for his belief in the existence of the
same elements having different atomic weights. He had the
boldness to give a name to such elements. Isotopes elements
in equal placeswas the word he coined. What an upheaval
this created. What was left of chemistry and all its pretty
theories was it all a house of sand? In 1897, on the discovery
of radium, Professor Runge of Gottingen had cried out,
"Nature is getting more and more disorderly every day." What
would he have said now? Every time a scientist dug into the
foundations of chemistry another rotten, unsafe timber was
discovered I

Would not scientists leave some things alone for a while
and rest satisfied with the existing structure? It did not appear
so. Men scratched their heads and vexed the elements once
more. Chemists were afraid to accept these disclosures. Had not
the whole scientific world been taught for more than a century
that elements had immutable atomic weights? Richards had
called them the "most significant set of constants in the uni-
verse." Scientists had believed all atoms of the same element,
regardless of source or method of preparation, had fixed atomic
weights. If the atomic weight of the element was not fixed, then
the whole structure of chemical calculations was only a house
of straw!

Was this all just a fabrication? Or was it a clue to the inter-
pretation of the fractional weights of chlorine, lead and
neon? Perhaps chlorine, which chemists knew as a simple ele-
ment, was in reality, a mixture of isotopes, each of which
possessed atomic weights of whole numbers. When mixed in
less than identical amounts, these isotopes would yield a gas
with an average atomic weight of 35.46. Was this the answer
to the inconsistencies of Prout's Theory? Was the death knell
of another dogma of chemistry to be heard?

The world again turned to the Cavendish Laboratory for the
final answer. New methods of attack had to be devised. Here
was the place for radical experiments. At about this time, J. J.
Thomson and his "saints of Cambridge" were developing their
"positive ray analysis." In this laboratory another of Thom-
son's brilliant students was at work on this perplexing prob-
lem. Francis William Aston came to Cambridge at about the
same time that Moseley reached Rutherford in Manchester.
The name of Aston had been heard at Cambridge long ago
when Newton walked its halls. This Aston was descended from
the distinguished family which held the Manor of Tixall in
Staffordshire from 1500. Newton had written to a Francis

MOSELEY 201

Aston regarding the transmutation of lead into gold This new
Aston was immersed in a problem of modern alchemy just as
baffling as that of his ancestor. He was to solve the riddle of
the isotopes.

"Positive rays" were first clearly described in 1886 by E.
Goldstein. He obtained these rays by introducing a small
quantity of gas in a Crookes tube containing a perforated
cathode. Besides the usual cathode rays there formed, behind
the perforated cathode, a stream of positively charged particles.
Thomson realized that this stream was composed of nothing
else but positively charged atoms of the gas, that is, of atoms
which had lost electrons and had become ions.

The great English scientist saw in these positive rays a pos-
sible vindication of Soddy's isotopes with which he had just
ruffled the chemical world. He argued that if these ions came
from atoms of the same element having different atomic
weights, then some means could be found to separate the ele-
ment into its various isotopes. A powerful electro-magnetic
field could sort them out very neatly since the lighter ions
would be deflected most.

Aston mastered this new approach to an extremely delicate
analysis of the chemical elements and developed it with sur-
prising accuracy. A narrow beam of positive rays was passed
into an electro-magnetic field which bent the stream of ions.
This deflected beam of rays was then photographed on a sensi-
tized plate. If the stream of ions was composed of atoms of
equal mass only one band of light appeared on the plate.
Positive rays consisting of atoms of different masses, however,
were split into an electric spectrum, the number of bands de-
pending upon the number of isotopes. Even the relative pro-
portion of the isotopes could be determined from the size
and darkness of the bands on Aston's "mass spectrograph."

Aston began the examination of those elements whose atomic
weights were not integers. He worked first with neon. By 1919,
definite proof of the physical separation of the two isotopes of
the gas neon was established. He had found neon to be a mix-
ture of 90% of neon with atomic weight of 20, and 10% neon,
atomic weight 22 hence its accepted fractional weight of 20.2.
Here was the first conclusive proof of the existence of isotopes,
and the explanation of fractional atomic weights.

A few weeks later the occurrence of the six isotopes of
mercury was similarly proven when W. D. Harkins and his
students at the University of Chicago fractionally distilled,
mercury vapor and separated it into six isotopes. In labora-

202 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

tories all over the world scientists followed the lead of Aston
and his Master. The proof was overwhelming. There was no
question of the atomic weights of the elements being whole
numbers. In 1922 Aston received the Nobel Prize for this
epochal work. Soddy, speaking of the tremendous effort that
had been put into the accurate determinations of atomic
weights even to the fourth decimal place by pioneers such
as Theodore Richards of Harvard University, declared that
with the discovery of isotopes, "something surely akin to if
not transcending tragedy overtook the life work of that dis-
tinguished galaxy of nineteenth century chemists."

The Unitary Theory of Prout began to be taken seriously.
Scientists were arguing upon solid ground. The evidence was
conclusive. Moseley had shown the way by determining the
exact number of protons in the nuclei of atoms. Rutherford
had proven the existence of nothing but hydrogen and helium
in these nuclei. And now Aston and his followers presented
convincing evidence of the presence of isotopes, all of which
had atomic weights of whole numbers. The overthrow of the
old conception of the Daltonian atom was complete, and Aston
declared, "Let us fix the word element precisely now and for
the future, as meaning a substance with definite chemical and
spectroscopic properties which may or may not be a mixture
of isotopes." In other words, he associated it exclusively with
the conception of atomic numbers rather than with the old
idea of constant atomic weights.

Moseley had builded better than he knew. It is hard to say
what this youthful genius might have accomplished had he
lived the normal span of life. Had not that Turkish bullet cut
him down in the fullness of his powers at Gallipoli, Moseley
would undoubtedly have contributed to the great chemical
harvest that was to come. It is safe, however, to say that he
could never have outdone his greatest research the discovery
of the Law of Atomic Numbers which solved the riddle of
the Periodic Table and the intimate relationship of all the
elements.

The beat of the harp is broken, the heart of the gleeman

is fain
To call him back from the grave and rebuild the shattered

brain
Of Moseley dead in the trenches, Harry Moseley dead

by the sea,
Balder slain by the blindman there in Gallipoli.

MOSELEY 203

Beyond the violet seek him, for there in the dark he dwells,
Holding the crystal lattice to cast the shadow that tells
How the heart of the atom thickens, ready to burst into

flower,

Loosing the bands of Orion with heavenly heat and power.
He numbers the charge on the center for each of the

elements
That we named for gods and demons, colors and tastes

and scents,
And he hears the hum of the lead that burned through

his brain like fire
Change to the hum of an engine, the song of the sun-grain

choir.

Now, if they slay the dreamers and the riches the dreamers

gave,
They shall get them back to the benches and be as the

galley slaves.

204 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS (1956)

(arranged according to atomic numbers)

At,
No.

Element

Sym-
bol

Atomic
Weight

At
No

Element

Sym-
bol

Atomic
Weight

I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
*18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51

Hydrogen ....
Helium

H
He
Li
Be
B
C
N

F
Ne
Na

ff

Si
P
S
Cl
A
K
Ca
Sc
Ti
V
Cr
Mn
Fe
Co
Ni
Cu
Zn
Ga
Ge
As
Se
Br
Kr
Rb
Sr
Y
Zr
Cb
Mo
Tc
Ru
Rh
Pd
Ag
Cd
In
Sn
Sb

1.008
4.003
6940
9.013
10.82
12.010
14008
16.0000
19.000
20.183
22.997
24.32
26.97
2806
3098
32,066
35.457
39.944
39096
40.08
45.10
47.90
50.95
5201
54.93
55.85
5894
58.71
63.54
65.38
69.72
7260
74.91
7896
79.916
83.7
85.48
87,63
88.92
91.22
9291
9595
99.00*
101.7
102.91
106.4
107.880
112.41
114.82
118.70
121.76

52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101

Tellurium ....

Te
1
Xe
Cs
Ba
La
Ce
Pr
Nd
Pm
Sm
Eu
Gd
Tb
Dy
Ho
Er
Tm
Yb
Lu
Hf
Ta
W
Re
Os
Ir
Pt
Au

T H , 9
Pb
Bi
Po
At
Rn
Fr
Ra
Ac
Th
Pa
U
Np
Pu
Am
Cm
Bk
Cf
E
Fm
Mv
sfab/i

12761
12692
131 30
13291
13736
138.92
14013
14092
14427
1460
15035
1520
15726
1592
162.51
16494
16727
169,4
17304
17499
1785
180.83
18386
18622
1902
193.1
19509
1972
20061
20439
20721
20900
210.0
211.
222.
223.
22605
2270
23212
23100
238.07
237.
242*
243*
243*
249*
249*
253
256
256
9 Isotope.

Lithium

Beryllium . . , .
Boron *

Carbon

Lanthanum , . .

Nitrogen ...

Praseodymium .
Neodymium . . .
Promethium . .
Samarium ....
Europium ....
Gadolinium . . .

Neon

Sodium

Magnesium . . .
Aluminum . . *
Silicon

Phosphorus . * .
Sulfur

Dysprosium . . .
Holmium ....

Chlorine

Potassium ....

Ytterbium . . .
Lutecium . . .
Hafnium . . .
Tantalum . . .
Wolfram

Scandium ....
Titanium ....
Vanadium . . .
Chromium . . .
Manganese . . .
Iron

Cobalt

Nickel

Gold

Cooler - * .

Zinc

Gallium

Lead

Germanium . . .
Arsenic . . . . .

Polonium

Selenium .
Bromine .
Krypton
Rubidium .
Strontium .
Yttrium

Francium , , . .

Actinium . . . .

Zirconium . *
Columbium .
Molybdenum
Technetium .
Ruthenium .
Rhodium . .
Palladium . .

Protactinium . .

Neptunium
Plutonium .
Amencium
Curium . .

Berkehum ,
Californium
Einsteinium

Cadmium * . . *
Indium *

Tin

Mendelevium . .
*Most

Antimony . .

XIV

LANGMUIR
PRESENTING A NEW MODEL OF THE ATOM

MOSELEY had just been born when another lad six years old
was growing up In Brooklyn, New York. Unlike the
English boy, he could pride himself on no scientific forbears.
His grandfather was a minister who had emigrated from
Scotland to Canada and then brought his family to Connecti-
cut. On his mother's side, too, there seems to have been no
hereditary promise of the scientific wizardry which was to
develop in this boy.

From an early age he began to store up in his active mind
a vast mass of knowledge about the physical forces around
him. He was constantly building things and tearing them apart.
He was sent to a public elementary school in Brooklyn, but
did not relish the classroom. He preferred to tinker about in
his own workshop or pester his three-year-old brother Dean
with problems in arithmetic.

Another brother, Arthur, had now graduated from Columbia
College and was planning to continue his science studies at
the University of Heidelberg. His parents decided to remain
near Arthur while he was abroad, and, at the age o eleven,
Irving was taken to Paris. And while Arthur was doing re-
search in chemistry, Irving spent three years in a Paris boarding
school under French tutors. He looked forward to the occa-
sional visits of Arthur, and would listen breathlessly to his
tales of research. Irving was only twelve, yet he wanted Ms
own laboratory, and with his brother's aid he built a small
one adjoining his room. Here he remained for hours at a
time working out the many alluring experiments described in
an old textbook he had bought.

The Langmuirs spent three years in Europe. Arthur success-
fully completed his studies at Heidelberg, and in the fall of
1895 they sailed for the United States, but not before Irving
had attended the public funeral of Pasteur in Paris a scene he
never forgot. At fourteen, he entered the Chestnut Hill Acad-
emy in Philadelphia under Dr. Reid* He knew all the chemistry
they taught here and more. At this time he came across a book
on calculus, became interested in the subject and at the end
of but six weeks mastered it. "It was easy," he told Arthur.

205

206 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

The next year he was in Brooklyn again, attending Pratt
Institute, where his brother was now teaching chemistry. At
eighteen he matriculated in the Columbia School of Mines,
from which he received the degree of metallurgical engineer,
and then left for Germany to do post-graduate work under
Professor Nernst at Gottingen the University made famous
by Woehler.

Three years later, Langmuir returned a Doctor of Philosophy
to teach chemistry at Stevens Institute in Hoboken. He re-
mained here until 1909. That summer he made a visit to the
Research Laboratory of the General Electric Company at
Schenectady which had been established eight years before in
a small shed-like structure. He planned to spend his ten weeks'
vacation doing research work.

One problem in particular attracted him. It was baffling a
number of the research workers. They were trying to make a
tungsten wire which would not break so easily in an electric
light bulb. Hundreds of samples of this wire had already been
prepared, but only three of them showed no weakness. Most
of the wires were short-lived, once an electric current was
passed through them.

He went to the man in charge of the Research Laboratory,
Willis R. Whitney, and asked to be assigned to this piece of
research. He wanted to investigate the behavior of these im-
perfect wires when heated to incandescence in evacuated bulbs.
Why did only three wires behave so perfectly? What was wrong
with the rest of the samples? Langmuir saw the invisible
trouble-makers before he began to investigate. He had an idea
that the weakness lay in certain gases which they had absorbed.

Whitney agreed and dropped in occasionally to watch him.
Years later he recalled those first few weeks. "There is some-
thing in Langmuir's work that suggests by sharp contrast an
oriental crystal-gazer seated idly before a transparent globe
and trying to read the future. In my picture an equally trans-
parent and more vacuous globe takes the place of the con-
ventional crystal sphere. It is a lamp bulb, a real light source.
Langmuir boldly takes it in his hand, not as some apathetic
or ascetic Yogi, but more like a healthy boy analyzing a new
toy. There might have been nothing in that vacuum, but he
was driven by insatiable curiosity to investigate and learn
for himself."

Langmuir expected to find a small volume of gas issuing
from the heated wires in the glass bulbs. But what astonished
him almost beyond belief was the tremendous quantities of gas

LANGMUIR 207

given off by the hot tungsten wires more than seven thousand
times their own volume of gases.

His summer vacation had rushed by, and Langmuir must
return to the comparative monotony of the classroom at
Stevens. He had not discovered the cause of emission of the
tremendous volume of gases, but he suspected the reason.
The glass bulb of the incandescent lamp, he surmised, gave
off water vapor which, reacting with the glowing tungsten wire,
produced immense volumes of hydrogen gas. This chemical
action weakened the tungsten wire and shortened its life in the
lamp.

It would be a pity to lose this man who could "hold his
theories with a light hand and keep a firm grip on his facts."
Whitney made Langmuir a tempting offer to stay with him as
a member of the research staff. His place in the classroom could
be filled by some other less gifted instructor. Langmuir
hesitated at first. Would it be fair, he asked Whitney, to spend
the money of an industrial organization like the General Elec-
tric Company for purely scientific work which might never
lead to any practical application? "It is not necessary for your
work to lead anywhere," replied Whitney. Langmuir then and
there made up his mindhe would remain in Schenectady.

Whitney believed with every other lamp engineer in the
country that the solution of the lamp problem lay in obtaining
a more perfect vacuum in the bulb. Langmuir would not admit
this. On the contrary, he was going to fill the electric light bulb
with different gases. By studying the bad effects of these known
gases, he hoped to learn the causes of the early death of the
incandescent lamp. This principle of research he found very
useful "When it is suspected," he declared, "that some useful
result is to be obtained by avoiding certain undesired factors,
but it is found that these factors are difficult to avoid, then
it is a good plan to deliberately increase each of these factors
in turn so as to exaggerate their bad effects, and thus become
so familiar with them that one can determine whether it is
really worth while avoiding them."

First Langmuir got rid of the immense volumes of gases
which the tungsten wire had absorbed. Then, instead of work-
ing for a more perfect vacuum, so that no oxygen would be
present in the lamp to attack the wire, he filled the lamp with
inactive gases. He chose nitrogen and argon, gases which would
not attack the tungsten filament even at the temperature of
incandescence. For years he worked persistently with his lamps,
He was given the freedom of an Academician, plenty of as-

208 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

sistants, and tens of thousands of dollars to continue his work.
Whitney was convinced that most of the practical applications
of science had sprung from pure scientific curiosity. History
had proved this over and over again. Clerk-Maxwell's work on
light, for example, undertaken in the unalloyed spirit of
philosophical inquiry, had ushered in modern radio.

Three summers passed without Langmuir finding a single
practical application to repay the huge sums of money he was
spending. He continued to investigate the problem which had
first attracted him, until finally the modern nitrogen and argon-
filled tungsten lamps were developed. Langmuir, the theorist,
saved America a million dollars a night on its light bill of
over a billion dollars a year. But that was not the purpose of
his labors at Schenectady. "The invention of the gas-filled
lamp," he assured the champions of applied science, "was
nearly a direct result of experiments made for the purpose of
studying atomic hydrogen (a purely theoretical problem). I
had no other object in view when I first heated tungsten
filaments in gases at atmospheric pressure."

His study of atomic hydrogen, carried through a period of
fifteen years, led, in 1927, to his invention of the atomic
hydrogen flame for welding metals which melt only at ex-
tremely high temperatures. A stream of hydrogen gas is sent
through an electric arc. The molecules of the gas dissociate
into hydrogen atoms which, on recombining, burn with a heat
sufficient to melt metals which withstand the high tempera-
ture of even the oxy-acetylene flame. These fifteen years of
experimentation on purely theoretical problems brought a
harvest of important applications in applied science.

From the beginning of his studies Langmuir was especially
interested in the structure of the atom. The nature of the
atom's structure was still very much in doubt. Many had
crossed swords with nature to wrest this secret from her. Kel-
vin had pictured the atom as consisting of mobile electrons
embedded in a sphere of positive electrification. J. J. Thomson
had developed this same idea but his model, too, had failed
because it could not account for many contradictory phe-
nomena. Rutherford's nuclear theory of the atom as a solar
system was also objected to as incomplete. The greatest
difficulty to the acceptance of these models was that they all
lacked a consistent explanation of the peculiar spectra of
gaseous elements when heated to incandescence.

Even before the discovery of the electron, Hendrik A.
Lorentz of Amsterdam had come to the conclusion that these

LANGMUIR 209

spectral lines were due to the motion of electrified particles
revolving around the nucleus of the atom. Another puzzle which
baffled the electronists was this. If electronic motion was the
cause of spectral light then Rutherford's atom ought to radiate
this light continuously. Stationary electrons were inconceiv-
able. Such electrons would be attracted by and fall into the
nucleus of the atom unless their stupendous speed around
the center of the atom counteracted the powerful pull of the
atom's kernel.

"There are times," said W. F. G. Swann of Yale, "in the
growth of human thought when nature, having led man to
the hope that he may understand her glories, turns for a tune
capricious and mockingly challenges his powers to harmonize
her mysteries by revealing new treasures/' Among those who
accepted the challenge was a young Danish scientist, Niels
Hendrik David Bohr, who was preparing for his Ph. D. degree
at the University of Copenhagen. His father was a student of
natural sciences and his-brother a distinguished mathematician.
Niels was to excel them both in the field of science. Eager to
learn at first hand the latest developments in the structure of
the atom, he went to Cambridge and studied for a time under
J. J. Thomson. Then in the spring of 1912 he went to Man-
chester to work under Rutherford.

In the summer of the following year Niels Bohr published
in the Philosophical Magazine an article on the Constitution
of Atoms and Molecules. Using Rutherford's conception of the
atom as a miniature solar system, he boldly postulated a
conception of the dynamic hydrogen atom, the simplest of all
atoms, having but a single electron outside its nucleus.

The Dane bravely abandoned his classical mechanics and
seized hold of a new key Planck's conception of quantum of
energy. Max Planck had enunciated a revolutionary theory.
Energy, he said, is emitted not in a continuous way but only
in tiny, finite bundles called quanta. Energy, he insisted, was
atomic in structure. Bohr was not afraid to use this unorthodox
idea. He pictured the single electron of the hydrogen atom as
revolving in an elliptical orbit around the nucleus unless dis-
turbed by some outside force like cathode rays, X-rays or even
heat. When thus disturbed, the electron would jump from one
orbit to another orbit closer to the nucleus. When electrons
leaped in this way light or some other form of radiation was
produced. The transfer to each different orbit represented a
distinct spectral line. "For each atom," he wrote, "there exist
a number of definite states of motion called stationary states.

210 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

in which the atom can exist without radiating energy. Only
when the atom passes from one state to another can it radiate
light."

Professor Free drew a beautiful analogy to explain Bohr's
theory of radiation. He said: "Imagine a series of race tracks
one inside the other. Imagine these tracks are separated by
high board fences. Put a race horse in the outermost track
and instruct him to run around it until, when he happens to
feel like it, he is to jump the inside fence into the next track,
run around it for a while and then jump the next fence, and
so on until he reaches the innermost track of all. If, then, you
watch this procedure from the field outside the outermost fence,
you will not see the horse at all as long as he is running in a
single track. The fences hide him. But whenever he jumps
from one track into the next, you will see him for an instant
as he goes over."

Using this method of attack he intimately associated the
amount of energy required to move a single electron from one
orbit to another with Planck's quantum of energy. He went
further and explained that the spectrum of hydrogen was^ so
complex because every sample of hydrogen gas used during
any experiment consisted of a large number of atoms in
different stages of equilibrium.

Niels Bohr provisionally determined the position of the
electron of hydrogen, its spectrum and the character of its
orbit. The other more complex atoms defied accurate analysis.
He had made use of all the theories and discoveries known
to science. By coordinating them he had finally postulated a
fairly probable explanation of these phemonena. His thesis
brought him undying fame and years later the Nobel Prize.
He showed the microcosm of the atom to be a strange world.
If we magnify the atom to the size of a football, the nucleus
would be but a speck in its center and the electron, still invisi-
ble, would be revolving around its surface. Similarly, if we
picture the atom as large as New York's Empire State Building,
the electron, the size of a marble, would be spinning around
the building seven million times every millionth of a second.
There is relatively more empty space in the atom than between
the planets in the solar system, Bertrand Russell, one of
England's most distinguished mathematicians and philosophers,
expressed this idea rather fancifully. "Science compels us," he
wrote, "to accept a quite different conception of what we are
pleased to call 'solid matter'; it is in fact something much more
like the Irishman's net, *a number of holes tied together with

LANGMUIR 211

pieces of string* Only it would be necessary to imagine the
strings cut away until only the knots were left." The only thing
that gives porous matter the appearance of solidity is the rapid
swarming of its electric particles.

Then came Gilbert Newton Lewis of the University of Cali-
fornia. Just before leaving for France in 1916 as head of the
Defense Division of the Chemical Warfare Service, he pub-
lished a paper which laid the basis of the modern theory of
the atom In every atom, said the California professor, is an
essential nucleus which remains unaltered. Around this nucleus
are cubical shells containing varying numbers of electrons
which occupy fixed positions.

This was the state of our knowledge of the structure of the
atom when Langmuir, the modern scientific conquistador, at-
tempted to invade the tiny world of the atom. There was an
unmistakable conflict between Bohr's theory of the hydrogen
atom and the conception of Lewis. Chemists could see but
little use in the Bohr atom. They wanted an atom which would
explain chemical reactions. The first World War over, Lang-
muir undertook to reconcile the two theories by publishing his
concentric shell theory of atomic structure.

One hundred and seventy years ago Lavoisier tried to find
the cause of the different behaviors of the elements. Why, for
instance, was chlorine so violently active, while nitrogen and
gold were almost completely inactive? Like thousands of other
scientists, Lavoisier failed to explain this strange phenomenon.
"The rigorous law from which I have never deviated," he wrote,
"has prevented me from comprehending the branch of chem-
istry which treats of affinities or chemical unions. Many have
collected a great number of particular facts upon this subject.
But the principal data are still missing."

The great Berzelius half a century later was still puzzling
over this question. "We ought/' he wrote, "to endeavor to find
the cause of the affinities of the atoms," and he suggested a
possible method of attack. "Chemical affinity," he believed, "is
due to the electrical polarity of the atoms." With the tre-
mendous strides made in theoretical and applied chemistry, the
solution of this important question still remained undiscovered.

Irving Langmuir, dreamer and practical engineer, saw in his
conception of the tiny cosmos of the atom a probable explana-
tion. Moseley's table of atomic numbers was his starting point.
The inert gases of the atmosphere which had led him a merry
chase in his researches on the gas-filled tungsten lamp were to
furnish the clue to the cause of chemical activity.

212 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

The elements helium (atomic number 2) and neon (atomic
number 10) were two stable elements. In these atoms the elec-
trons outside their nuclei must therefore represent stable groups
which rendered their atoms incapable of chemical activity.
Langmuir pictured helium as containing a nucleus of fixed
protons and cementing electrons, and two additional electrons
revolving in a shell outside the central core. The distances
between the shells were made to agree with the various orbits
of the Bohr atom. These two electrons around the nucleus con-
stituted a stable configuration. All atoms, said Langmuir, have
a great tendency to complete the outermost shell. This tend-
ency to form stable groups explains the chemical activity of
the atom. Hydrogen is very active because its shell, containing
but one electron, is incomplete and needs another electron to
form a stable group of two electrons, as in helium.

electron ^ ....

nucleus \

x...... **: :::''*

The Hydrogen Atom The Neon Atom

Neon, with ten electrons outside its nucleus, represents
another stable configuration having two electrons in its first
shell and eight more in a second larger shell concentric with
the first. All the elements with atomic numbers between 2
and 10 are, therefore, active to an extent depending upon
the completeness of their second shells. For example, lithium,
atomic number 3, possesses only one single electron in its
second shell, and hence in its eagerness to have its outside
shell complete will readily give away this third electron to
another element, and thus have left but two electrons in the
first shell a stable group. This tendency to lose electrons from
the outermost incomplete shell makes lithium an extremely
active substance. Fluorine, atomic number 9, shows two elec-
trons in its first complete shell, and seven additional electrons
in its second shell. It needs but a single electron to complete
its second shell of eight electrons. Hence it, too, shows a
violent tendency to capture an electron, thus manifesting ex-
treme chemical activity.

LANGMUIR 213

Atoms, said Langmuir, differ from each other in chemical
activity only because of their tendency to complete their out-
side shells and thus render the atom stable. Argon, the third
inert gas in Moseley's Table of the Elements, has an atomic
number of 18. Its first shell is complete with two electrons, its
second shell is also complete with eight additional electrons,
while its third shell likewise contains eight electrons, showing
once more a stable configuration. Hence argon is inert. Chem-
ical affinity is thus a condition dependent upon the nature of
the outermost shell electrons. When the outside shell of an
atom contains very few electrons, its tendency is to lose them.
Such an atom is a metal. If, on the other hand, the outermost
shell of an atom contains an almost complete ring, it will
strive to borrow some electrons from other atoms which are
anxious to lose them. Such an atom is a nonmetal. Metals are
lenders of electrons and nonmetals are borrowers. Hence metals
and nonmetals will combine energetically with each other and
both, by an exchange of electrons, assume the stable condition.
Chemical affinity or union, therefore, depends upon this trans-
fer of electrons. In a polar union a positive atom loses its
valence electrons to a negative atom and the two atoms are
held by electrostatic attraction. In a nonpolar union electrons
are not actually transferred the two atoms approach each other
so that one or more valence electrons of one atom occupy the
vacant positions in the valence shell of the second atom. Non-
polar compounds are thus formed by a process of sharing pairs
of electrons.

The concentric shell theory of Langmuir solved other riddles.
It explained valencethe tendency of elements to combine
with one or more atoms of hydrogen. Valence had baffled
chemists ever since Frankland, an English chemist, had intro-
duced the idea in 1852. Valence, according to Langmuir, ^is
the number of electrons which the atom borrows or lends in
its effort to complete its outside shell. Thus chlorine, which
borrows but one electron, has a valence of one, which means
that it combines with but one atom of hydrogen.

Langmuir's conception of the structure of the atom also
threw a flood of light upon the meaning of isotopes atoms
of the same chemical and physical properties but differing in
mass. Since chemical affinity depends upon the electrons in the
outermost shell, Langmuir believed chlorine isotopes, for
example, to have the same number of electrons outside the
nucleus. Each chlorine isotope has seventeen free electrons of
which seven are in the outermost shell. Since, however, they

214 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

differ in weight, Langmuir postulated quite rationally that
the nuclei of isotopes differ by having different numbers of
particles other than protons in their central cores.

In spite of all the new approaches which illuminated the
outer regions of the atom, the center or nucleus of the atom
continued to remain a bundle of uncertainties. Something o
the composition of the nuclei of a few elements was already
known. This information came from a study of the spontaneous
disintegration of radium and other radioactive elements, such
as thorium, polonium, uranium, and radon. These elements
break down of their own accord into simpler elements. Soon
after the Curies' discovery of radium, Rutherford and Frederick
Soddy, his student and collaborator, had found that the spon-
taneous breaking down of radium resulted in the emission
of three types of rays and particles. Radium ejected alpha
particles (ionized helium atoms), beta particles (electrons),
and gamma rays (similar to X-rays). In radioactive elements, at
least, it was believed that the nucleus contained electrons,
protons, and electrified helium particles.

This picture of a nucleus containing nothing but helium
and hydrogen nuclei and electrons contained paradoxes. All of
the protons of an atom are in the nucleus, but not all of its
electrons are outside its nucleus. Some of its electrons must,
therefore, be within its nucleus to help neutralize the positively
charged protons, since normally elements are electrically neu-
tral; they give no electrical shock when touched because they
lack an excess of either positive or negative electricity. But how
can negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons
exist side by side in the nucleus? In other words, what pre-
vented the negative electron and the positive proton from
joining together since they were so closely situated in the tiny
nucleus? Speculations were no longer unfashionable in twen?
tieth-century science. William D. Harkins of the University of
Chicago was audacious enough to advance a seemingly pre-
posterous theory of the existence of another entirely new unit
in the nucleus. On April 12, 1920, he had written to the
Journal of the American Chemical Society that in addition to
the protons and alpha particles in the nuclei of atoms, there
is also present "a second less abundant group with a zero net
charge." He suggested the name neutron for this nonelectrified
particle of atomic number zero, made up of a single proton
and a single electron very close together.

This was a bold prediction and an accurate one. Twelve
years later, in the winter of 1932, the particle was actually

LANGMUIR 215

discovered, not by Harkins but by an Englishman, James
Chadwick, working in Rutherford's laboratory. Chadwick had
shot helium bullets (from old radium tubes sent to him by
the Kelly Hospital of Baltimore) against beryllium, a metal
lighter than aluminum, and noticed that something of great
penetrating power was knocked out of the target. To account
for the high energy of this unknown something which was
thrown out of the beryllium, and to save the law of the con-
servation of energy, Chadwick said that these new "rays" were
really not rays at all. They must, he believed, be made of
particles of the mass of protons, but unlike protons, they were
not electrically charged. Since these neutrons were electrically
dead, they could not be repelled by^the impregnable electric
walls of the atom, and hence they had a terrific penetrating
power. Two and one-half inches of lead were capable of stop-
ping only half of them. What had really happened could be
expressed in the following equation:

Beryllium 4- Helium > Carbon 4- Neutron
at. weight 9 -t- 4 *- 12 + 1

= electron
+ = proton
n = neutron

What was the scientist's new picture of the structure of the
atom in 1932? The idea of planetary electrons outside the
nucleus remained unchanged. But his conception of the nu-
cleus was different. There were no longer any free electrons in
the nucleus. Only protons and neutrons were found there. The
atomic weight or mass of an element was equal to the total
number of protons and neutrons in its atom. The atomic
number of an element was defined either as the number of
planetary electrons in its atom, or as the number of protons in
the nucleus of its atom.

In the same year in which the neutron was discovered, the
Swedish Academy of Science recognized the fundamental work
of Langmuir and awarded him the Nobel Prize for his researches
in chemistry the first American industrial chemist to be so
honored. Langmuir later turned to other fields of investigation,
notably to the problems of surface phenomena. He pioneered
in studying the question of how certain substances are adsorbed

216 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

on the surfaces of other chemicals, and how molecules arrange
themselves in thin layers on such surfaces.

Later, Langmuir found himself immersed in the problems of
weather control. A carefully planned series of experiments was
undertaken to determine whether clouds could be made to
change into rain or snow at the command of man rather than
at the whim of nature. Such an achievement would be of tre-
mendous practical importance. It could prevent huge losses to
farmers when drought threatened to destroy their crops. It
could "punch holes in the sky," and clear the atmosphere of
fog and cloud quickly enough to permit pilots to take off and
to land in perfect safety. It would encourage men to further
investigations leading to more types of weather controls, and
even to climatic changes.

At the General Electric Flight Test Center near Schenectady,
New York, Langmuir and his assistants went up in planes in
1947 and seeded supercooled clouds from above with pellets
of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). Vincent J. Schaefer, one of
his associates, had produced man-made rain and snow by this
method for the first time in 1946. Langmuir's group succeeded
in causing huge clouds to condense into rain by this method,
and also by using silver iodine crystals instead of dry ice. On
the basis of the unexpected behavior of certain clouds that had
been attacked with dry ice Langmuir predicted before the Na-
tional Academy of Science that it would even be possible soon
to get rain out of some clouds at will by the use of water itself
dispersed at the right time. Later he expressed even more
optimistic ideas. He thought it would be possible, in the not
too distant future, to change the general cloud formation over
wide areas such as the northern part of the United States, and
thus produce profound changes in the weather of thousands of
square miles of territory.

Irving Langmuir, today, is still very much interested in re-
search and in young scientists. Even as Whitney many years
back saw a great promise in him, Langmuir has great faith in
the young research worker in science. He believes with that
great protagonist of evolution, Thomas Huxley, who over half
a century ago exclaimed: "I would make accessible (to the
scientist) the highest and most complete training the country
could afford. I weigh my words when I say that if the nation
could purchase a potential Watt, a Davy, or a Faraday, at the
cost of a hundred thousand pounds down, he would be
dirt-cheap at the money."

XV

LAWRENCE
HIS NEW ARTILLERY LAYS SIEGE TO THE

ATOM'S NUCLEUS

WHILE Langmuir had circumnavigated the atom and even
penetrated into its outer lines of electron defenses, the
inner core or nucleus still remained very much a no man's
land. What was now needed to enter the guarded citadel of the
atom's nucleus were high-speed particles even more powerful
than the alpha particles of radium disintegration. In 1932,
within the space of less than a month, two new particles were
revealed, two brand-new projectiles ready to be brought up
with the artillery that was once more to lay siege to the sub-
atomic world. The neutron was one of these bullets, deuterium
or heavy hydrogen was the other.

Everywhere researchers dose to the problem realized this
need. A friendly yet spirited race had already begun in many
laboratories of the world to build mighty armaments new
atomic siege guns which would hurl thunderbolts of staggering
power to shatter the tiny nucleus into fragments that could be
picked up and studied.

The greatest of these ordnance builders is Ernest Orlando
Lawrence. He was born, soon after the opening of the new
century, in the little town or* Canton, South Dakota. His pa-
ternal grandfather, Ole Lavrensen, was a schoolteacher in
Norway who came in 1840 to Madison, Wisconsin, during the
Norwegian migration, to teach school along the frontier of
America. He had his name anglicized to Lawrence immediately
upon arrival in the new land. Ernest Lawrence's maternal
grandfather was Erik Jacobson, who came twenty years later
to seek a homestead in South Dakota when that area was still
a territory. Both his grandmothers were also natives of Norway.
Ernest's father, Carl G. Lawrence, was graduated from the
University of Wisconsin and became president of Northern
State Teachers College at Aberdeen, South Dakota. His mother
was born near Canton, where Ernest, too, was born on August
8, 1901, only twelve years after South Dakota became a state.
As a young boy he was sent to the public schools of Canton
and Pierre, South Dakota. Later he attended St. Olaf College
and the University of South Dakota. He had become attracted
to science through an experimental interest in wireless commu-

217

218 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

nication, but for a while it seemed that he might pursue his
hankering for a medical career. Finally, however, he threw
in his lot with the physics of the atom and radiation.

Lawrence did some graduate work at the University of Min-
nesota, where he came under the influence of W. F. G. Swann.
He followed Swann to Yale, did graduate work under him, took
his doctorate there in 1925, and stayed on, first as National
Research fellow, and later as assistant professor of physics.
When Swann left to head the Bartol Research Foundation at
Philadelphia, Lawrence answered a call to the University of
California.

Late one evening in the spring of 1929, Lawrence quite acci-
dentally came across an excerpt from the dissertation of an
obscure investigator. Attracted to a diagram of a piece of
apparatus used by this physicist, he never finished reading the
paper. Within a few minutes after he had seen that diagram
he began sketching pieces of apparatus and writing down
mathematical formulas. The essential features of his new ma-
chine came to him almost immediately.

With this new instrument Lawrence planned to whirl an
electrical bullet in a circle by bending it under the influence
of a powerful electromagnet. As it passed around one half the
circumference of a highly evacuated tank shaped like a covered
frying pan, he was going to give the particle repeated electrical
kicks which would send it racing in ever-widening circles at
greater and still greater speeds, until it reached the edge of the
evacuated tube, where it would emerge from a slit and be
hurtled into a collecting chamber. Here he would harness it as
a mighty projectile against the nucleus of an atom. He was
going to adjust the magnetic field so that the particle would
get back just as the initial alternating current changed direction
and at the exact moment it was ready for another kick. The
particle was to be speeded on its way to get the same effect by
applying a thousand volts one thousand times as he would
by applying a million volts all at once.

By January, 1930, Lawrence had built his first magnetic
resonance accelerator, which later became commonly known
as the cyclotron. Between the poles of an electromagnet was a
vacuum chamber only four inches in diameter. In this were
two D-shaped insulated electrodes connected to a high-fre-
quency alternating current. Down the center ran a tungsten
filament. The rest of the machine was constructed of glass
and red sealing wax. With the help of N. E. Edlefsen, his first
graduate-student assistant, he succeeded in getting actual reso-

LAWRENCE 219

nance effects. The idea worked, and Lawrence made his first
public announcement of the machine and method in Septem-
ber of that same year at a meeting of the National Academy
of Sciences in Berkeley.

Lawrence's cyclotron, at the beginning, was essentially a new
tool of theoretical research into the nature of the atom's struc-
ture. After the first glass model of a cyclotron, Lawrence, with
the help of M. Stanley Livingston, another of his graduate
students, made a metal cyclotron of the same size. He was able
with this new machine to generate with a current of only 2000
volts a beam of hydrogen ions (protons) with energies cor-
responding to those produced by 80,000 volts. By February of
1932 Lawrence had built a model costing $1000. This eleven-
inch merry-go-round device was able to speed protons with
energies equivalent to 1,200,000 volts. He was getting now
into the big figures. With this instrument he disintegrated the
element lithium in that summer of 1932the first artificial
disintegration of matter carried out in the Western Hemi-
sphere, thirteen years after Rutherford had blazed the trail
in England.

A seventy-five-ton monster was then built and wired with eight
tons of copper in the newly established Radiation Laboratory
of the University, of which Lawrence was made director. This
27i/-inch cyclotron was calculated to deliver several micro-
amperes of 5,000,000 electron-volt deuterons and 10,000,000
electron-volt helium nuclei. Protons and helium nuclei, as
well as the nuclei of the newly discovered heavy hydrogen
atom (deuterium), were hurled by this new cyclotron with
crashing effects. Lawrence, at the suggestion of G. N. Lewis,
called the heavy hydrogen bullets deutons, against the advice
of Rutherford, who preferred dtplons because, he thought,
"deutons were sure to be confused with neutrons, especially if
the speaker has a cold." Later by agreement of scientists, the
nucleus of heavy hydrogen was named deuteron.

The discovery of deuterium had been predicted by Ernest
Rutherford in England and by Gilbert N. Lewis and Raymond
T. Birge of the University of California. Deuterium is a double-
weight hydrogen atom; that is, an isotope of ordinary hydrogen
of atomic weight one. Its nucleus contains one proton and
one neutron. Tritium is a third isotope of hydrogen. Its nucleus
is composed of one proton and two neutrons and has an atomic
weight of three.

The prediction of deuterium's discovery came true in a
chemical laboratory of Columbia University. Harold C. Urey,

220 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

born in Indiana, had received his doctorate at the University
o California and had studied under Bohr. Early in his career
he had suspected the presence of heavy hydrogen as a result
of his analysis of the spectrum of ordinary hydrogen. In the
fall of 1931 F. G. Brickwedde of the United States Bureau of
Standards evaporated a quantity of liquid hydrogen and sealed
the last few remaining drops in a glass tube which he sent to
Urey for examination. The Columbia scientist passed an elec-
tric discharge through the tube, scrutinized its spectrum lines,
and announced the presence of the heavy isotope of hydrogen,
which he named deuterium (D), from the Greek word meaning
second. It occurs in ordinary hydrogen to the extent of about
one part in five thousand. This discovery for which Urey
earned the Nobel Prize in 1934 was hailed as one of the most
important of the century.

By 1935 Lawrence had shot deuterons against the element
lithium and obtained helium, and had effected many other
similar transmutations. The way was now clear for the trans-
mutation of every element in the table of atomic numbers-
including even the transformation of baser metals into the
gold of the alchemists' dreams. The change of platinum into
gold was actually accomplished in 1936 in his cyclotron. This
machine was followed by bigger and more powerful ones. Re-
ferring to his newest cyclotron, he remarked: "There lies ahead
for exploration a territory with treasures transcending anything
thus far unearthed. It may be the instrumentality for finding
the key to the almost limitless reservoir of energy in the heart
of the atom."

Lawrence's fame spread rapidly and honors came flowing
his way. These were finally capped by the award of the Nobel
Prize in 1939 for the invention of the cyclotron and especially
for the results attained by means of this device in the pro-
duction of artificially radioactive elements. Hitler, in the mean-
time, had overrun much of Europe, making it quite impossible
for Lawrence to go to Stockholm to receive the award per-
sonally from Sweden's king. Instead, the presentation was made
at Berkeley, with the Consul General of Sweden present to
represent his government. The prizewinner's colleague, Ray-
mond T. Birge, made the presentation address, and reminded
his audience of the splendid example of co-operative effort
represented by Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory. Lawrence's
first remark on hearing of the award was, "It goes without
saying that it is the laboratory that is honored, and I share
the honor with my co-workers past and present."

XVI
MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY

LATE in 1938, in Berlin-Dahlem, an experimenter in nuclear
chemistry touched off a wave of excitement throughout
the world which even reached the front pages of the most con-
servative newspapers. At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Chemistry, only a few miles from Hitler's Chancellery, three
researchers had proceeded to repeat some experiments first
performed by Enrico Fermi in Rome in 1934. The Italian
scientist, in an attempt to produce the Curies' artificial radio-
activity in the very heavy elements by bombarding them with
neutrons, believed he had created an element (No. 93) even
heavier than uranium.

Two of these scientists in Berlin-Dahlem, Otto Hahn and
Lise Meitner, had already confirmed Fermi's results, when
Fritz Strassmann joined the team and together they continued
with these experiments. On January 6, 1939, they observed a
strange result which they published two months later in Die
Naturwissenschaften, According to Hahn and Strassmann, the
bombardment of uranium with neutrons had split the uranium
atom almost in halfl The smash-up had produced what they
had reason to believe were two different and lighter elements,
isotopes of barium and krypton (U^Ba^+Kr 88 ). Hitherto
only bits of the heavier atoms had been chipped away.

What was even more startling than this transmutation was
the announcement of the three scientists that during this spec-
tacular change their oscilloscope recorded a release of energy
equivalent to 200,000,000 electron volts. The Germans were
completely at a loss for a logical explanation of this phenome-
non. Hahn, co-discoverer with Meitner of the element protac-
tinium, in 1917, was a professional chemist. He was interested
only in the deep-seated chemical change that had occurred.
The problem of the energy change escaped him. Lise Meitner,
a mathematical physicist, knew, however, that something new
and tremendously important had happened in the subatomic
world of the nucleus of uranium. In the meantime, however,
the purge of non-Aryans and other intellectuals from German
universities under Hitler caught up with the sixty-year-old
woman scientist.

221

222 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

In spite of a lifetime of distinguished scientific work in
Europe, during an intensified period of purges and atrocities
Lise Meitner was finally marked by the Nazis as a Jew for
arrest and a concentration camp. Early in 1939, therefore, she
"decided that it was high time to get out with my secrets. I
took a train for Holland on the pretext that I wanted to spend
a week's vacation. At the Dutch border I got by with my
Austrian passport, and in Holland I obtained my Swedish visa."
Meitner, of course, wanted to escape the concentration camp
but, even more important, she desperately needed to get out
of Germany because she felt that she had an interpretation of
the Hahn-Strassmann experiment an explanation whose im-
plications might change the course of Jiistory. On the basis
of mathematical analysis Meitner saw in the Berlin experiment
a splitting or fission of the nucleus of uranium into two almost
equal parts. This atomic fission was accompanied by the release
of stupendous nuclear energy resulting from the actual con-
version of some of the mass of the uranium atom into energy
in accordance with Einstein's mass-energy law.

Back in 1905, Albert Einstein, in developing his theory of
relativity, announced that there was no essential difference
between mass and energy. According to his revolutionary
thinking, energy actually possessed mass and mass really rep-
resented energy, since a body in motion actually possessed more
mass than the same body at rest. Emsteitt advanced the idea
that ordinary energy had been regarded as weightless through
the centuries because the mass it represented was so infini-
tesimally small as to have been missed and ignored. For ex-
ample, we now know that the mass equivalent of such a
colossal amount of energy as is needed to boil 300,000 tons
of water is only a tiny fraction of a -single ounce. The mass
equivalent of the heat energy required to boil a quart of
water would, therefore, be almost negligible.

Einstein published a mathematical equation to express the
equivalency of mass and energy. The equation is

E=MC a

where E represents energy in ergs, M is mass in grams, and C
is the velocity of light in cm/sec. This last unit is equal to
186,000 miles per second. When this number is multiplied by
itself as indicated in the formula, we get a tremendously large
number; hence, E becomes an astronomically huge equivalent.
For example, one pound of matter (one pound of coal or

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 223

uranium) is equivalent to about 11 billion kilowatt hours, if
completely changed into energy. This is roughly equivalent to
the amount of electric energy produced by the entire utility
industry of the United States in less than one month. Compare
this figure with the burning (chemical change rather than
nuclear change) of the same pound of coal, which produces
only about 8 kilowatt hours of energy. The available nuclear
energy of coal is about 2 billion times greater than the avail-
able chemical energy of an equal mass of coal.

These ideas of Einstein were pure theory at the time. If
the tremendously great electrical forces, the binding energy,
that held the different particles inside the nucleus of the atom
of radium or other elements could be suddenly released, Ein-
stein's ideas might be shown to be true. The first bit of
confirmation came in 1932. J. D. Cockcroft and E. T. S. Walton,
working in Rutherford's laboratory, accelerated protons in a
high-voltage apparatus to an energy of 700,000 volts. The very
swift protons then were made to strike a target of lithium
metal. The lithium atom was changed into helium ions with
energies many times greater than those of the proton bullets
employed. This additional energy apparently came as a result of
the partial conversion of some of the mass of lithium into
helium in accordance with the following nuclear reaction:

LITHIUM + HYDROGEN > HELIUM -f energy

Li + H > 2 He

Mass 7.0180 + Mass 1 0076 2 (Mass 4.0029)

Mass 8.0256 > Mass 8.0058

This equation (8.0256 -* 8.0058) seems to show a condition
of imbalance, for the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
There is an approximate loss of Mass 0.02 a fatal decimal that
was to shake the world. This loss of mass is accounted for by
its conversion into the extra energy of the swiftly moving
helium nuclei produced. This energy turns out to be the exact
mass equivalent as determined by Einstein's energy-mass equa-
tion mentioned above. For the first time in history a method
of transmuting an element by means other than a radioactive
product had been accomplished. However, the method used
by these experimenters was extremely inefficient; only one out
of several billion atoms actually underwent the change. There
was, therefore, no great excitement over this bit of scientific
news.
But the publication of the energy release in the Hahn-

224 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Strassmann experiment not only revived the old interest, but
raised it to a fever heat. Before Meitner had reached Stock-
holm in her flight from the Nazis the Joliot-Curies had
obtained the same effect independently of the German investi-
gators. In Stockholm, Lise Meitner communicated her thoughts
regarding uranium fission to Robert O. Frisch, another German
refugee who was then working in the laboratory of the world-
famous atom-scientist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. On Janu-
ary 15, 1939, Bohr's laboratory confirmed the Hahn experiment.
Frisch was terribly excited. He sent the news immediately to
Bohr, who had just reached the United States for a stay of
several months to discuss various scientific matters with Ein-
stein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New
Jersey.

Bohr, too, became excited at the news and communicated it
to other scientists. Within a few days three American research
groups had confirmed the experiment.

On January 26th Bohr attended a Conference on Theoretical
Physics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Atomic fission had electrified the many scientists gathered
there. There was much discussion and speculation over this
new phenomenon. Among the top-flight atomic artillerymen
present was Enrico Fermi. He was then professor of physics
at Columbia University. He had just arrived from fascist
Italy with his wife, Laura and two children. When Mussolini
embraced racism, Fermi, an antifascist, thought the time had
finally arrived when he must leave his native country and try
the free air of America. During his talk with Bohr, Fermi
mentioned the possibility that nuclear fission might be the
key to the release of colossal energy by the mechanism of a
chain reaction. He speculated that the fission of the uranium
atom might liberate additional neutrons which might be made
to fission other atoms of uranium. In this way, there might
be started a self-propagating reaction, each neutron released
in turn disrupting another uranium atom just as one fire-
cracker on a string sets off another firecracker until the whole
string seems to go up like a torpedoed munition ship in one
mighty explosion. Subatomic enery could thus be released and
harnessed, producing from a single pound of uranium energy
equivalent to that produced by 40,000,000 pounds of TNT.

The possibility of a chain reaction obsessed nuclear physi-
cists. Why had not the chain reaction of uranium fission
actually occurred? Niels Bohr and a former student, John A.
Wheeler of Princeton University, puzzled over this question.

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 25

At a meeting of the American Physical Society at Columbia
University on February 17, 1939, they advanced a theory of
uranium fission which postulated that not all the uranium
employed as target actually fissioned. They believed that less
than one percent of their uranium target disintegrated because
only one of the three isotopes of uranium was actually capable
of fission. This fissionable isotope first discovered in 1935 by
Arthur Dempster of the University of Chicago, has an atomic
weight of 235 instead of 238 which is the atomic weight of
99.3% of the uranium mixture found in nature. U-238 is
extremely stable; its half-life has been estimated to be four
billion years.

Bohr and Wheeler reasoned that a chain reaction could be
obtained only from pure U-235. They also proposed that the
chain reaction could be initiated by bombardment with slow
neutrons, and Fermi who had already pioneered in the field of
slow neutrons, suggested that graphite could be used as the
slowing-down agent or moderator. Neutrons normally emitted
are very fast (10,000 miles per second). Such fast neutrons are
easily captured by U-238, but no fission occurs. When forced to
hurdle some retarding agent such as graphite or heavy water
fast neutrons collide with it and lose some of their energy,
which may slow down their speed to a pace no greater than
1 mile per second. The slow neutron may bounce around from
one U-238 nucleus to another until it strikes the nucleus of
a U-235 atom and splits it. The effectiveness of the slow or
thermal neutron has been compared to the slow golf ball
which rolls along slowly and drops gently into the cup on the
green while the fast moving golf ball simply hops past the
cup.

The first researcher to separate a minute quantity of U-235
from the isotopic mixture of natural uranium was Alfred O,
Nier of the University of Minnesota. He sent this miscroscopic
quantity of U-235 (about 0.02 micrograms) to Fermi and
others at Columbia University. The prediction of Bohr and
Wheeler was confirmed in March, 1940.

Nier had worked hard to separate the tiny bit of U-235,
but the process was extremely slow. Thus the possibility of
releasing huge quantities of atomic energy still remained a
dream. Fantastic stories went the rounds to the effect that
Hitler had ordered his scientists to redouble their efforts to
supply him with several pounds of the powerful element
whose terrific destructive powers would bring world domina-
tion for Nazi arms. But, for the moment, it continued to

226 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

be as devastating a secret weapon as the rest of his threats.

Security blackout of news imposed in June, 1943, left the
world speculating as to whether atomic energy could actually
ever be harnessed for practical use. When the news of triumph
finally came on August 6, 1945, it surprised even the most
optimistic scientists. The great marvel, said President Truman,
"is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy or cost, but the
achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely
complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different
fields of science into a workable plan." The controlled release
of atomic energy was not only the most spectacular but also the
most revolutionary achievement in the whole history of science.
Within the short span of five years a handful of scientists,
standing on the shoulders of thousands of others who had been
probing the heart of the atom for fifty years, uncorked a
torrent of concentrated energy that could improve the world
immeasurably or blot it out completely.

The thousands of scientists of every race, nationality, reli-
gion, and motivation had, except for the last chosen few, no
idea of the monster they were fashioning. They knew only that
they were adding just another bit to human knowledge. Science
is an international activity. The widespread dissemination of
the findings of researchers in hundreds of laboratories through-
out the world makes possible the cooperation of all peoples
in the hunt for new principles and new machines. Men and
women from almost every corner of the earth played their
parts in the drama of atomic energy. Only a very few of these
actors were aware that near the close of the drama, there
would emerge an atomic bomb. William Roentgen, the Ger-_
man who discovered X-rays in 1895, could not have dreamed
of it. The Frenchman, Henri Becquerel, who noticed the effect
of the uranium ore, pitchblende, on a photographic plate in
a darkroom, could not have guessed it. The Polish-born
scientist, Marie Curie, caught a glimpse inside the spontane-
ously disintegrating world of the radium atom, but could not
foresee the harnessing of subatomic energy. J. J. Thomson of
England and Ernest Rutherford of New Zealand, who gave us
the electron and the proton, considered controlled atomic
energy both too expensive and too far distant.

Scientists working in the field of nuclear physics included
Niels Bohr, a Dane, Enrico Fermi, an Italian, Wolfgang
Pauli, an Austrian, Georg von Hevesy, a Hungarian, Peter
Kapitza and D. Skobelzyn of the Soviet Union, Chandrasek-
faara Raman of India, and H. Yukawa, a Japanese who as

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 227

early as 1934 foreshadowed the presence of a new nuclear
unit, the mesotron, which was later discovered by California
Tech's Carl D. Anderson, son of a Swedish immigrant.

Soon after the reality of atomic fission had been demon-
strated the United States undertook the construction of a
bomb on the basis of the concentrated energy locked up in
the heart of the atom's nucleus. One of the many crucial prob-
lems to be solved was the production of a controlled and self-
maintaining nuclear chain reaction. Early in 1942, a large
structure called a pile was set up by Fermi on the floor of the
squash-rackets court underneath the west stands of Stagg
Field of the University of Chicago. The pile contained 12,400
pounds of specially purified graphite bricks with holes at
calculated distances in which were embedded lumps of ura-
nium oxide and pure uranium sealed in aluminum cans to
protect the uranium from corrosion by the cooling water
pumped through the pile. The graphite bricks act as a moder-
ator, to change fast neutrons into slow or thermal neutrons. The
thermal neutrons produced then cause fission in U-235, produc-
ing a new generation of fast neutrons similar to the previous
generation. Thus neutron absorption in U-235 maintains the
chain reaction as a further source of neutrons.

There was a great deal of theorizing, calculating, discussing,
and changing of plans. There was a great deal, too, of piling
and repilmg of graphite bricks, hence the name pile for the
uranium reactor. On the final day of trial Fermi, Compton,
Zinn, and Herbert L. Anderson stood in front of the control
panel located on a balcony ten feet above the floor of the
court. Here stood George L. Weil, who was to handle the final
control rod which held the reaction in check until it was
withdrawn the proper distance. Another safety rod, automat-
ically controlled, was placed in the center of jJb.e pile and
operated by two electric motors which responded to an
ionizing chamber. When a dangerously high number of
neutrons were escaping, the gas in the ionizing chamber would
become highly electrified. This would automatically set the
motor operating to shoot a neutron-absorbing, cadmium-
plated steel rod into the pile. As an added precaution an
emergency safety rod called Zip was withdrawn from the pile
and tied by a rope to the balcony. Norman Hilberry stood
ready to cut this rope if the automatic rods failed for any
reason. Finally, a liquid control squad stood on a platform
above the pile trained and ready to flood the whole pile with
water containing a cadmium salt in solution.

228 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Fermi started the test at 9:54 A.M. by ordering the control
rods withdrawn. Six minutes later Zinn withdrew Zip by hand
and tied it to the rail of the balcony. At 10:37 Fermi, still
tensely watching the control board, ordered Weil to pull
out the vernier control rod thirteen feet. Half an hour passed
and the automatic safety rod was withdrawn and set. The
clicking in the Geiger counters grew faster and the air more
tense. "I'm hungry. Let's go to lunch/' said Fermi, and his
staff eased off to return to the pile at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
More adjustments, more orders, and at 3*21 Fermi computed
the rate of rise of neutron count. Then suddenly, quietly, and
visibly pleased, Fermi remarked, "The reaction is self-sustain-
ing. The curve is exponential/' Then for 28 more minutes
the pile was allowed to operate. At 3:53 P.M. Fermi called
"OK" to Zinn, and the rod was pushed into the pile. The
counters slowed down. It was over. The job that came close
to being a miracle was completed. December 2, 1942 marked
the first time in history that men had initiated a successful,
self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Only a handful of men
surrounding Enrico Fermi knew that on this wintry Wednes-
day afternoon mankind had turned another crucial corner.

Fermi's pile turned out to be a plant which efficiently manu-
factured a new element in large quantities. This element is
plutonium. It is a brand new man-made chemical element
which fissons just as easily as U-235. The story of the birth of
this synthetic element goes back to a day in May, 1940, when
two men using Lawrence's cyclotron at Berkeley, California,
bombarded uranium with neutron bullets. The two men were
Edwin M. McMillan and Philip H. Abelson. After the bom-
bardment of U-238 they detected traces of a new element,
heavier than uranium. This new element, No. 93, was named
neptunium by McMillan. It was a very difficult element to
study, for its life span was very short. It threw out neutrons
immediately and in a split second was no longer neptunium.

It was exciting enough to have made a new element, but
what was even more thrilling was the discovery, before the
end of that same year, of still another element which turned
out to be even more interesting than neptunium. McMillan,
Glenn Seaborg, A. C. Wahl, and J. W. Kennedy learned late
in 1940 that neptunium actually changed into another element
heavier than itself. This fairly stable element, No. 94, was
sensitive to neutron bombardment and fissioned in a similar
manner to U-235, emitting other neutrons capable of produc-
ing a chain reaction. This was a tremendously important fact,

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY

229

for here science had a substance which could be used instead
of U-235 in the projected atom bomb. Furthermore, this
new element, plutonium> could be separated from natural
uranium much more easily than could U-235. This was true
because it is an entirely different element and could be
separated by chemical means rather than by the very difficult
physical means used for separating the isotopes of uranium.
The nuclear reactions involved in the discovery of neptu-
nium and plutonium, and in the fission of the latter element,
may be represented by the four steps indicated:

(1) U-238 + neutron
cleus contented)

U-239 (no fission. . ..nu-

23 min.

(2) U-239 >Np-2 3 9 (radioactive) + electron

half-life

(This change occurs by the breaking down of 1
neutron in the nucleus of U-239 into 1 proton and
1 electron which escapes. The neutron is here
considered as a particle composed of 1 proton
and I electron very tightly packed together 1 .)

2.3 days

(3) Np-239 ;->Pu-239 + electron

half-life

(This change occurs by the breaking down of 1
neutron in the nucleus of Np-239 into 1 proton
and 1 electron which escapes.)

fissionable with f ,

(4) Pu-239 > U-235 + Helium++

half-life = \ slow neutrons
^24,000 years/

(mass 4)
(alpha particle)

230 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Glenn Seaborg was only twenty-eight when he discovered
plutonium. Within the next few years he headed several groups
of research workers who created seven more transuranium
dements. In 1944 came elements Nos. 95 and 96 which were
named americium, and curium after the Curies, Almost five
more years passed before two new births were announced
elements No. 97, christened berkelium after the home of the
cyclotron that Lawrence had given to science, and No. 98,
named californium. Another four crowded years went by and
element No. 99 was synthesized and was given the name
einsteinium after the great scientist who had just died.

The 100th element of the expanded Periodic Table was
first sighted in the dust of a nuclear explosion set off in 1952
at Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. When Enrico Fermi, one of
great builders of the atomic age, was killed by cancer late in
1954, his fame was immortalized in the name of this new
element, fermium. Finally, element No. 101 was created out
of element 99 and named mendelevium. But this is not the
end of element creation, for Seaborg predicated that within
the next few years at least seven more elements would be
synthesized.

During the operation of a nuclear reactor or cyclotron a
large variety of radioisotopes can be manufactured in large
quantities. A radioisotope is any isotope which is radioactive,
that is, which disintegrates with the liberation of one or more
types of particles of electrons, protons or helium nuclei, or
penetrating gamma radiation similar to X-rays. The first
radioisotope, nitrogen-13, had been created back in 1934 by
Irene and Fr<dric Joliot-Curie. Half of this radioactive
nitrogen changed within 15 minutes into an inactive form of
nitrogen and another particle called a positron. Half of the
remainder disintegrated within the next fifteen minutes and
so on progressively. We say that the half-life of radioactive
nitrogen is, therefore, fifteen minutes.

Laurence's cyclotron had manufactured many other radio-
isotopes, but this factory was a very slow and inefficient one
compared with a nuclear furnace. With the invention of the
nuclear reactor several hundreds of brand new atomic species
or isotopes were created for the first time and made available to
scores of research centers. The radioactive isotope turned
out to be a new, revolutionary, and extremely delicate tool
in scientific research. It is used in the so-callecf tracer or
tagged-atom technique. For example, radioactive sodium-24
is substituted for the normal sodium-23 atoms in a bit of

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 231

common table salt (sodium chloride). This is taken into the
body in foods. In about twenty-four hours Na-24 has completely
changed to a new element and has ejected a high-speed par-
ticle. This ejection can be recorded by means of a Geiger
counter placed next to various parts of the body. In this way
the itinerary of a tracer atom can be followed to find the
answer to some health problem.

Georg von Hevesy was the first to use this technique back
in 1923. He used lead and bismuth, which are slightly radio-
active in their natural state. He used it once, he told a friend,
at a boardinghouse where he suspected the quality of the
food that was served. One day he brought to the table a mil-
lionth of a millionth of a gram of radioactive compound and
dropped it on a small scrap of meat which he left in his plate.
The next day he appeared at his usual place in the dining room
armed with a Geiger counter. As the meat dish hash was
placed before him the Geiger counter clicked the warning. It
was the same meat that had been left on his plate the day before.
That settled it. Hevesy changed his boardinghouse.

In addition to its many uses in medical and physiological
research, radioisotopes are used in therapy, and in agricul-
tural and industrial research. Radioactive cobalt, for example,
became available for the treatment of deep-seated cancer. This
isotope of atomic weight 60 loses half its radioactivity in about
five days and is more than 300 times as powerful as radium. It
is taking the place of radium and X-ray therapy in many
hospitals.

Above and beyond the creation of new elements and the
dazzling developments in the use of radioisotopes which
followed the release of nuclear energy and the construction
of the first successful nuclear pile, shines the promise of a
new and almost unlimited supply of energy. This will do
the world's work, relieve mankind of the back-breaking opera-
tions of mine, mill, farm, and factory, and raise the standard
of living of hundreds of millions of people all over the globe.
Every nuclear pile is a potential electric power station. During
its operation uranium is fissioning and large quantities of
heat are being liberated. This heat changes water to steam,
which operates a conventional turbine. Electricty is generated
and distributed from the nuclear power plant to wherever it
is needed.

The three essential parts of any nuclear reactor are the
fuel, the moderator, and the protective shielding. The main
fuel is uranium-235, obtained by separating it from the other

232 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

isotopes present in natural uranium ores, or from plutonium.
When U-235 is bombarded with neutrons, it fissions and
produces heat. The moderator, which is usually either graphite
or heavy water, slows down the neutrons liberated and makes
them more effective for fissioning. The shielding of lead and
concrete walls prevents the very dangerous fission products
from leaving the reactor, thus safeguarding the health and
lives of its operators. Several types of nuclear reactors are
already in operation. The nuclear power age has only just
begun, and the most efficient type of power plant may be
still far off. It may well be that within ten or twenty years
this goal will be reached and the new standard nuclear reactor
will be as different from the one in use today as the old
Model T Ford is from the sleek and powerful modern auto-
mobile.

The first nuclear reactor was built by the United States
Government in 1943 at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It resembled
the Chicago atomic pile constructed by Fermi the previous
year. Several nuclear reactions took place as shown on page
229. The method of separating the Pu-239 from U-238 in
this pile had been first worked out by Seaborg, Segre, and two
other associates. Because this work had preceded their employ-
ment by the United States Government on the bomb project,
the Patent Compensation Board of the Atomic Energy Com-
mission in 1955 awarded them $400,000 for their rights
to this process.

At least 80 reactors are already in use or being built by or
for several other countries including Australia, Belgium,
Canada, England, France, India, Norway, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland and the Soviet Union. Some of these are already
producing electricity. This and other startling facts were an-
nounced at the United Nations-sponsored International Con-
ference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, first initiated
by President Eisenhower and held in August, 1955, at Geneva,
Switzerland.

This meeting, with its 1200 delegates and another 600 ob-
servers, turned out to be more than a conference of ^scientists
from seventy-four countries mingling and exchanging knowl-
edge on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. It was also some-
thing of a businessmen's gathering where top-level executives
and high-pressure salesmen, books in hand, looked for orders
for nuclear reactors and all kinds of instruments for the new
nuclear age. British representatives, especially, were advertising
their readiness and ability to design and build nuclear power

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 233

plants of various types for any part of the globe. American
businessmen were somewhat irked at the security system in their
own country which prevented them from reaching into the
world markets with products equal to those of any other
nation. This unnecessary secrecy was later eased by the United
States Atomic Energy Commission, which welcomed private
industry as a partner in a thrilling adventure.

Marquis Childs, one of the many reporters covering the
Geneva Conference, wrote in his syndicated newspaper column,
"It is a little as though the use of fire to serve man's well-
being had become known ten years ago. And as a result of
this discovery there had been assembled from all over the
world the first rudimentary cooking pots and other crude
beginning devices to turn this new force to practical advantage."

The 1946 prediction of Robert Oppenheimer, one of the
pioneers in this field, that great nuclear reactors would be
supplying enough energy to heat a large city within ten years,
had practically come true. Altogether there were some twenty-
nine reactors operating in the United States, plus three national"
reactor laboratories in full production in 1955. In January
of that year the first atom-powered transport became a reality
when the United States submarine Nautilus put to sea success-
fully. This boat and its sister ship, the submarine Sea Wolf,
built soon after, became the forerunners of atom-powered
merchant ships, locomotives, airplanes, and such portable
nuclear plants as small house boilers and atomic reactors for
medical research.

Six months later, the United States Atomic Energy Com-
mission began selling the first atom-generated electricity to
private utilities. The 10,000 kilowatts of power came from an
experimental reactor which had been built at West Milton,
New York. The electricity was sent into the public utility
lines of the Niagara-Mohawk Power Corporation, and was
sufficient to supply a city of 25,000 population. As the giant
switch was thrown by Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission, he pointed out that "This switch is a
symbol of the great dilemma of our time. I throw it now to
the side of the peaceful atom and by that choice we of the
United States mark the beginning of a fulfillment of the
Scriptural injunction of Isaiah: 'They shall beat their^words
into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.' "

Nineteen fifty-five also saw the dedication of the first
privately financed laboratory in the world devoted exclusively
to nuclear research. It also witnessed the start of the building

234 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

of the first stationary full-scale civilian, atom-powered electric
plant at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, 25 miles north of Pitts-
burgh. Westinghouse Electric Corporation built the reactor;
the Atomic Energy Commission, sole manufacturer of nuclear
fuel and owner of the Plant, provided the U-235; and the
Duquesne Light Company of Pittsburgh supplied the turbine
generator to operate the 60-100,000 kilowatt, $50,000,000 plant.
Delivery of power was promised for 1957 to customers in the
Pittsburgh area.

The first large-scale privately-financed nuclear power plant
is being built by Consolidated Edison Company of New York.
It is also the first thorium power plant in the world. The site
of this 155,000,000 station, with a capacity of 200,000 kilowatts,
is Indian Point, New York, on the Hudson River about 40
miles north of New York City. This water-moderated breeder
type of nuclear system will supply electricity to about one
million New Yorkers starting in 1960.

The Power Reactor Development Company, including the
relfblt Edison Company, will build a fast breeder type nu-
clear power plant in Monroe, Michigan, with a capacity of
100,000 kilowatts, also to be ready by 1960. Another group,
including the Commonwealth Edison Company, expects to
finish its 180,000 kilowatt, General Electric-built nuclear power
station in Lemont, Illinois, in time to supply electricity to
the Chicago area at about the same time. Altogether seven large
and several small nuclear power plants are either under con-
struction or in the planning stage with a total capacity of
about one million kilowatts at a cost of almost one-third
of a billion dollars of private capital.

It is only a beginning, of course, representing less than
one per cent of our present installed generating capacity.
This unusual activity was sparked that year by an offer of the
Atomic Energy Commission to help private industry in the
development and operation of nuclear power plants. It offered
to lease nuclear fuel in the form of U-235 at $11,350 a pound,
and to provide basic nuclear energy information supplied by
its own research scientists.

The cost of the electricity generated in these nuclear power
plants will be greater than current costs from conventional
fuels in this country. But as more and more progress is made,
costs will come down. Said the Financial World early in 1956,
"Within a decade, nuclear power costs should compare favor-
ably with conventional plant costs over most of the nation."
In other parts of the world this will come even sooner.

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 235

As this thrilling new project got under way, experts in the
field began to forecast that by 1960 the United States would
have nuclear plants producing about 800,000 kilowatts of
energy. A technical appraisal task force has been set up by
our electric power and light companies with the object of
maintaining American leadership in this field. It is hoped that
by 1970, 14% of all new generating plants in this country will
be atom-powered, and by 1980 this figure should rise to 35%.
By the close of the century half the nation's new electrical
power, it is predicted, will be generated by atomic fuel
extracted, refined, and manufactured by American chemists.

Early this same year Britain, too, was moving ahead in its
atoms-for-peace program. In a Christmas message, Sir John
D. Cockcroft, the scientist who achieved the first artificial
transmutation by man-made projectiles, broadcast his belief
that "Within two years our nuclear reactors will be delivering
very substantial amounts of electricity to industry and our
homes. Perhaps by next Christmas some of you will even be
cooking your Christmas dinners from electricity generated
by atomic power." The .British already have in operation a
full-scale nuclear power station at Calder Hall, in Cumberland,
not far from the famed Lake District supplying electricity to
the national power grid.

With two new power plants already under construction, one
of them in Scotland, England has committed herself to a ten-
year program for building altogether twenty electric power
stations to be run by nuclear fuels. Her dwindling coal sup-
plies, which have forced her to import coal from the United
States, and her mounting need of electrical energy, expected
to double in the next ten years, made this imperative. Each
of the first two constructed by the nationalized Electricity
Authority will have an output of 200,000 kilowatts. The
total capacity will be about 5.5 million kilowatts, and the cost
of the program will be about three billion dollars.

By 1965 it will meet 50% of the growth factor demanded
annually by her expanding industry and population. Within
the following decade Britain will be building no new generat-
ing facility other than nuclear and will produce 50% of its
electricity from nuclear fuel. By 1980 she will be producing
atomic energy equivalent to_the energy now obtained by coaL
In addition, England will be actively engaged in the exploi-
tation of the new rich export trade in nuclear reactors, fuel,
fuel processing and radiation equipment, as well as hundreds
of other instruments needed by the new atomic age.

236 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

Russia turned up at Geneva that same year of 1955 with
more than hollow promises. Alongside our full-scale "swim-
ming-pool" nuclear reactor which we had flown to the Con-
ference for exhibition, the young Russian scientists presented
a model of her first "commercial" power reactor which, they
said, had been in operation for more than a year. Not far
from Moscow it had fed 5000 kilowatts of electrical energy
into farms, factories and homes on a modest experimental
scale. The new Soviet Five Year Plan calls for the completion
by 1960 of several atomic energy plants with a total capacity
equal to that of the United States and England combined.
These are to be built mainly in the European part of the
Soviet Union where coal and other fuel are in short supply.

The chief of the Russian Atomic Energy Commission re-
ported that an atomic icebreaker is under construction, and
an atomic whaler will also be built. Russian leaders also told
their people that they were completing the world's largest
nuclear power generator, as well as the most gigantic atom
smasher ever attempted. The latter is a $100,000,000 syn-
chrocyclotron located 60 miles north of Moscow, which will
hurl protons with energies of ten billion volts, almost double
that of the largest and heaviest particle accelerator now in
existence the bevatron of the University of California.

What of the underdeveloped countries of the world? Presi-
dent Eisenhower, looking "to find the way by which the
inventiveness of man shall be consecrated to his life," had
outlined the previous year an Atoms-For-Peace Program to
the General Assembly of the United Nations. He offered free
nuclear fuel on a lend-lease basis with which to build atomic
furnaces both for experimental and, eventually, industrial
uses. Eighteen months later he doubled this allocation of en-
riched uranium fuel to 22 countries including Brazil, India,
and Japan. Early in 1956 he stirred the whole world again with
the announcement that 88,000 pounds of U-235 would be
released for use here and abroad for developing atomic energy
for peaceful purposes. Over a period of years, half this huge
pile of fissionable uranium would, with suitable safeguards,
be sent overseas to those countries which were not at present
making U-235. This, said Eisenhower, was an act of "faith
that the atom can be made a powerful instrument for the
promotion of world peace."

The most spectacular single announcement that came out
of the Geneva meeting of atomic scientists was that of Professor
Homi J. Bhabha, head of India's Atomic Energy Commission

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 237

and president of the Conference. Bhabha represented a country
where the energy problem is one of the keystones of its future.
It is a land where SO % of its energy at that moment came from
one of the most primitive methods still in use, the burning of
dung, a product which could be better put to use to improve
the productivity of her soil. Bhabha was looking even further
ahead than the nuclear fission of uranium.

"When we learn how to liberate fusion energy in a con-
trolled manner/' he told his fellow scientists, "the energy
problems of the world will truly have been solved forever,
for the fuel will be as plentiful as the heavy water in the
oceans." Scientists from all over the world were startled. A
limitless supply of energy for mankind within two decades
was being predicted by a first-rate nuclear physicist. Even men
who could see undreamed-of developments in this exploding
field of nuclear energy rubbed their eyes and searched for
clues and shreds of information on which this almost unbelieva-
ble prediction had been made.

To understand this new development we must examine
the mechanism of the so-called thermonuclear reaction of the
hydrogen bomb which had already been successfully demon-
strated by American scientists in 1952. Soon after the A-bomb,
loaded with uranmm-285 and plutoniuin, had been exploded
for the first time in history in the summer of 1945, our scientists
went to work on another type, the hydrogen or H-bomb. The
principle of this weapon is somewhat different from that of
the A-bomb. The destructive force of the H-bomb comes
from the fusion of lighter atoms into a heavier one, rather
than from the fission of a heavier element into lighter ele-
ments.

Two isotopes of hydrogen take part in the fusion process.
Heavy hydrogen or deuterium has a mass of two, double
that of ordinary hydrogen, and radiohydrogen or tritium, the
heaviest form, has a mass of three. Heavy hydrogen is found
in all water, including that of the oceans, to the extent of
about one part in 6000. Tritium, with a half-life of 12 years,
is a synthetic product. It can be made in a nuclear reactor
by bombardment of the isotope of lithium of atomic weight
6 with neutrons. It has also been found in extremely minute
quantities in nature where it is created by the bombardment
of fast neutrons produced by cosmic rays from outer space on
atoms of nitrogen.

The nuclei of deuterium and tritium are made to merge
or fuse. During this fusion the hydrogen is transmuted into

238 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

helium, whose mass is 4. One neutron is liberated during
the fusion and nuclear energy is produced in tremendous
quantities because in fusion, too, there is a loss of matter.
This thermonuclear reaction may be expressed as follows:

Deuterium + Tritium > Helium + Neutron +
Nuclear Energy

o

For such a nuclear reaction to take place, however, an
enormously high temperature is necessary. Such a temperature
of about 100,000,000 degrees centigrade is found only in the
sun and other stars. In fact, the energy released during the
creation of helium out of hydrogen is generally accepted
today as the mechanism that produces and maintains the ter-
rific heat of the sun.

This temperature is needed for only about one-millionth of
a second to start the fusion process. With the discovery and
control of uranium fission, such a temperature became availa-
ble to mankind for the first time. During the fission of
uranium and plutonium in the A-bomb, central temperatures
as high as 150,000,000 degrees centigrade are produced. The
detonation of an A-bomb can thus act as a trigger for the
explosion of an H-bomb, which probably contains uranium,
plutonium as well as lithium-6 deuteride. The neutrons (N)
released by the A-bomb strike the lithium deuteride (Li-6)
and split it into tritium (T) and helium: Li 6 -f N 1 - T* + He*.
The tritium and deuterium then fuse as shown in the thermo-
nuclear equation given above. This double bomb explosive
can be constructed to provide almost unlimited destructive
power since, unlike the A-bomb, the H-bomb is not restricted
to the relatively narrow limits of a specific or critical size
of an A-bomb, Ordinary A-bombs are in the kiloton or thou-
sand tons of TNT class. Hydrogen bombs are in the megaton
class, that is, they can produce energy which is the equivalent
of as much as sixteen million tons of TNT.

For the first time in history there was presented a real
promise of an unlimited supply of cheap energy for the whole
world. Here was enough energy to dwarf the total energy of
coal, oil, natural gas, running water, and even uranium and

MEN WHO HARNESSED NUCLEAR ENERGY 239

thorium. Thorium is an element found in monazite sand of
Brazil, India, the United States and many other parts of the
world. It occurs to the over-all extent of about 12 parts per
million in the crust of the earth. This is at least four times as
plentiful as uranium. It is not a fissile element, but it is a
fertile metal: it can be rendered as fissionable as uranium-
235 or plutonium by being transmuted to uranium-233, which
fissions when struck by slow neutrons in a nuclear reactor. A
thorium reactor can actually breed more fuel than it consumes.

It became known at Geneva that an atomic race of a new
sort was on. The United States, England, France, and the
Soviet Union had already embarked on extensive research work
to try to harness the energy of this new giant for peaceful
purposes. There was some uneasiness apparent among men
present at the Conference who were thinking in terms of
huge investments in the nuclear energy industry which was
being born. Would the brand new uranium, plutonium or
thorium reactors being designed for the brave new world that
was just around the corner be obsolete even before they had
been completed? Billions of dollars of investors' money were at
stake. Were their "conventional" atomic reactors to become,
in no time, the Model Ts of the deuterium-tritium age com-
ing up fast? Was it safe to invest in uranium power plants?

Prospectors, processers, investment brokers, and investors
by the thousands of uranium ore stocks began to have night-
mares. We were digging three million tons of uranium ore out
of the ground each year. The United States was stockpiling
uranium as fast as it could. We were in the throes of a virulent
uranium fever. Thousands of people miners, clerks, sheep
herders, gasoline pump attendants, and salesmen swarmed
over the 100,000 square miles of the Colorado Plateau. They
were searching for uranium with Geiger counters, drilling test
holes in every acre of red desert rock in canyons and mesas,
and recording claims by the hundreds. What if there were a
sudden break in this new fusion research even sooner than
Bhabha had predicted? Billions of dollars of investments
might go down the drain if tritium replaced uranium. Sober,
knowledgeable scientists quieted them. They were reminded
of the many stupendous difficulties that still lay ahead. Per-
haps, some said, it would never be solved, for it was an
infinitely tougher job than even the fusion control under-
taking had been. Uranium and thorium were still to be relied
on as the fuel of the near future.

All agreed, however, that the conquest of nuclear fission

240 CRUCIBLES: THE STORY OF CHEMISTRY

would usher in a new and far greater industrial revolution,
especially in the backward countries of the world. That, of
course, was a triumph of science of no mean proportion. But
there were some bold spirits who saw nuclear fusion, too,
within our grasp. Said Sir John Cockcroft in a lecture at the
Geneva meeting: "My faith in the creative ability of the
scientist is so great that I am sure that this [power from
fusion] will be achieved long before it is essential for man's
needs."

In the meantime, there is a ferment in laboratories all over
the world. Scientists are still picking the nucleus of the atom
apart and trying to put together the twelve to twenty-one
subatomic particles already discovered or predicted, to
see how the atom really ticks. Creative chemistry is in the
middle of this great adventure, too. And it will continue to be
as fruitful in many other areas where chemists are searching
for new products which nature in all her lavishness neglected
to create*

THE END

of a Premier Reprint by
BERNARD JAFFE

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